The Empty Space

Yesterday was the launch of The Year After Kahlia.

There were books stacked neatly. platters beautifully displayed. Conversations humming. People who care.

And I was nervous.

Not the polite kind of nervous. The kind that sits in your throat and makes your hands cold. The kind where your heart thuds and your body forgets how to breathe properly.

I was about to stand up and speak.

And all I wanted was her.

Kahlia would have been the loudest in that room. She would have rolled her eyes at my anxiety and said, “Mum, you’ll smash it.” She would have taken photos. Made jokes. Made herself part of the moment.

She would have been proud.

That’s what I wanted most yesterday. Not the applause. Not the sales. Not the congratulations.

I wanted to catch her eye in the crowd and know she believed I could do it.

Instead, I stood there and felt the space where she should have been.

There were faces I hadn’t seen in 22 months. Some of them I last saw at her funeral.

Time had moved across all of us.

You can see it in people. In the way they talk about what’s next. In the quiet ways their lives have unfolded.

The world has continued.

That’s both beautiful and brutal.

There were moments yesterday when I was reminded of futures still forming. Of new chapters beginning. Of life stretching forward in ways it is meant to.

And all I could think was how excited she would have been for it. How she would have inserted herself into the middle of it, claimed it, made it bigger.

Grief isn’t only missing who they were. It’s missing the roles they would have played.

Poppa was there. That mattered so very much.

And it hurt. Because he carries his own grief quietly. He was in the hospital when Kahlia died and didn’t attend her funeral. He left early yesterday because it was too much. Realising that. did something to me.

Grief doesn’t stay contained in one body. It moves through families. Through generations. Through rooms.

Yesterday wasn’t just my milestone. It was a reminder of how many people are still carrying her.

I did the speech.

My hands shook, I felt hot and sweaty - very attractive! I said her name. I spoke about love and suicide and survival and the year that broke me open.

People clapped.

They told me they were proud.

But the part that undid me was this:

I wished she was in the front row.

Not in memory.
Not in spirit.
Not metaphorically.

Physically. Present. Real.

I wanted to see her eyes.
I wanted her nod.
I wanted her to mouth, “You’ve got this.”

That is the strange shape of milestone days after loss.

You can be proud.
You can be grateful.
You can be surrounded by people who care.

And still only want the one person who isn’t there.

Yesterday was beautiful.

And it was incomplete.

I wish she was in the front row.