My now-deceased boyfriend Kevin and I lived cities apart and saw each other in bursts—days, weeks, even a month together—all in vacation mode, immersed in our love. Sometimes we went weeks without seeing each other, although we typically talked several times a day.

In a way, I’ve accepted his no longer calling. Yeah, in the way of listening to his voice mails over and over. Think I’m wallowing?

Maybe, but I think of wallowing more as misery. My grief therapy can be bittersweet. It’s the juxtaposition between yeah, it really was that wonderful, extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime kind of relationship and now it’s over.

Kevin was the ideal man for me. He was crazy, sexy, cool. He was my person I’d been searching and going through all those fools for. The proof is in his letters, voicemails, text messages, his shares with me on Facebook, and The Boyfriend Log ap I kept on my phone.

I tracked our relationship from day one—determined not to deny and put myself in a deep hole over some asshole again (i.e. get hurt). The evidence is there, all green and orange, amazing and happy, day after day. I didn’t make it up. It’s not like the guys I look at after a break-up and see all the ways I deceived myself.

Still, there was no way I could see the red sad symbol I’d chart on March 4, 2016. I must acknowledge not only the depth of the loss, but the greatness of our love. It wasn’t grandiose, but it was grand. It still is. I hold onto it as I let the reality of Kevin’s sudden and unexpected death sink in.

I walk in cemeteries and see proof of people dying and leaving loved ones to go on. It’s a path people have walked since the beginning of time.

I’m walking it, sometimes in circles. No worries, it’s not a race. There’s no winning or losing. Acceptance is a practice, like yoga. I stretch into it, some days stiffer than others. I’m present. I’m willing.

Yet, my mind darts to yesterday and my heart constricts. I resist owning what I still find difficult to fathom: my great love has died.