This is one-on-one. Grief one last ride milestones February 12 

This is the lesson they never teach you.
When somebody dies, people quietly start measuring your grief.
Too much.
Too little.
Too loud.
Too quiet.

But there is no decorum in grief.
There is no correct volume.
There is no timetable.
There is no manual.

Today is February 12th.
February 12th is not just a date on a calendar.
It is the day I buried my son.

Two years ago, on this day, I carried what no father should ever have to carry.
Last year, I was still numb. I genuinely felt like I was in a movie — like someone would yell “cut” and this nightmare would end. I couldn’t comprehend it. I couldn’t feel it properly.

They say the second year is the hardest.
They’re right.
The first year you’re in shock.
The second year, reality walks in, sits across from you, and doesn’t blink.
It cuts clean — like butter.

February 12th.
I remember picking up Zaza from the morgue and bringing him home for his final trip. I remember talking to the funeral director, then getting into the car and thinking:
“This is the last ride I will ever have with my son.”

From the house to the church.
From the church to the burial ground.
Another last ride.
Another final moment.

People don’t talk about these details.
But these are the moments that stay carved into you.
From January 15th — the day he passed — until February 12th, the day we buried him, I ate maybe three times in ten days. Maybe porridge. Mostly just water. My body was alive, but my brain was not functioning. You’re not living. You’re surviving. Barely.
At 12 or 1 p.m., we buried him.

And the very next day — February 13th — we received a phone call that my step-sister in Germany had passed away.

So here are the milestones:

January 15th — he passes.

February 12th — we bury him.

February 13th — my step-sister passes.

February 22nd — Zaza’s birthday.

March 1st — Alex’s birthday.

It’s wave after wave. No time to breathe. No time to process. Just impact after impact.
This isn’t about doom and gloom.

This is just reality.
Grief takes the very core of your breath away. It is painful in a way that language cannot properly hold. It’s so painful that sometimes you can’t even think. You just exist in fragments.

Today is another reminder that he is not coming back.
And that is a truth that hurts in new ways every year.

So when you see us — grieving parents, grieving men — understand this:
We are carrying dates.
We are carrying last rides.
We are carrying hospital corridors and funeral dirt and unanswered questions.
Nobody prepares you for this.

There is no handbook for burying your child.
No chapter on how to survive the anniversaries.
There is just love.

And the unbearable weight of missing them.
And we carry it anyway.