When the Apology Never Came

Something happens at the end of the year.
Everyone’s out here tying bows on things, checking boxes, pretending the past twelve months made sense. And if you’re anything like me, that’s when the ghosts get loud. The old hurts. The unfinished business. The conversations that never happened and never will.

So before the calendar flips, here’s the thing I keep returning to: some stories don’t get neat endings. Some apologies never come. And we have to figure out how to keep living anyway.

If you’re still carrying it, and they’re dead
I get it.

The apology never came.
The acknowledgment never arrived.
The reckoning never happened.
And now it never will.

And somehow, that makes it worse.

Sometimes it also comes with guilt.
Or confusion.
The kind that asks the wrong questions at the worst times.

Was I too hard on them?
Did I miss something?
Am I allowed to be angry at someone who can’t answer back?

Grief gets strange when the person who hurt you is also the one who’s gone.
The feelings don’t line up neatly.
You can miss them and resent them in the same breath.
You can feel relieved and ashamed of the relief.

None of that makes you cruel.
It makes you honest.

There’s a particular kind of grief that comes with not being able to confront the person who hurt you. Not because they wouldn’t listen. Not because they were sorry-but-not-really. But because they’re gone.

They don’t get to grow.
They don’t get to explain.
They don’t get to make it right.

And you don’t get closure.
Not the kind you wanted, anyway.

It’s okay to miss them and still demand better.
To mourn their absence and the accountability they took to the grave with them.

So now what?

What do you do with the ache, the rage, the old script that still plays in your head even though the person who wrote it is six feet under?

You could try to let it go.
But if it were that easy, you would’ve by now.

You could tell yourself they did the best they could.
But maybe their best sucked.
Maybe they didn’t try at all.

You could carry it forever.
But you already know how heavy that gets.

So maybe instead, you do the one thing they never did.

You see it.
You name it.
You call it what it was.

And then, one shaky breath at a time, you give it less of you.

Not because they deserve forgiveness.
Not because their death absolved them.
Not because there was ever a sliver of hope they’d meet you halfway.

But because you deserve relief.

You’re still among the living.
You’re still showing up.
If for no one else, then for yourself.

Because that’s what life is.

They’re dead.
There’s nothing you can do.

Except stop letting them write your story from the grave.