Moving On

American accent

Every morning, Michael woke up reaching for someone who was no longer there. His hand moved across the space beside him before his mind could stop it. When his fingers touched only cold sheets, he turned his face toward the wall and waited for the pain to subside. It never fully did.

It had been 18 months since his wife died. People said he was coping well. He went to work. He answered messages. He smiled when expected. What they did not see was how narrow his life had become, how carefully he avoided moments that might break him open.

The house was full of her. Too full. Her shoes stood by the door. Her coat still hung where she had left it. Michael lived around these things, not with them. Opening the wardrobe felt like a risk he could not afford to take.

One afternoon, while cleaning the garage, he found a dusty box pushed into a corner. He stared at it longer than he wanted to admit before opening it.

Inside were small, forgotten things: scarves, birthday cards, and broken objects she had never thrown away. At the bottom lay her journal. Michael sat on the floor and opened it.

The pages were ordinary. Lists. Complaints. Small hopes written without fear. He read until his chest felt tight. None of these words knew how the story would end.

He closed the journal and pressed it against his chest. The weight of it felt unfair.

That evening, his son called.

“Dad,” he said gently, “you can’t stay like this forever.”

Michael wanted to disagree. Instead, he stayed silent. After the call, he sat at the kitchen table under the bright light and understood something painful: holding on was no longer protecting her memory. It was preventing him from living.

Moving on felt wrong. Like an act of disloyalty. As if choosing to live again meant accepting that she was truly gone.

Still, he brought the box into the living room and found another one. His hands shook as he began to choose. He kept the journal. He kept the photographs. The rest went into the second box without care.

When he reached her sweater, he stopped.

He pressed it to his face. There was no smell left. Nothing to hold on to. The loss hit him all over again, like a knife through his sad heart.

“I didn’t choose this,” he said aloud.

The next morning, Michael drove to the donation centre. The box sat on the passenger seat. He did not look at it. Inside, someone thanked him and carried it away.

Back in the car, Michael rested his head against the steering wheel. The grief came, heavy and sudden. He let it. When it passed, what remained was not peace, but space.

At home, the house felt different. Not empty. Just quieter. Less crowded by the past.

That night, Michael lay in bed and listened out of habit. The silence was still there.

Moving on, he finally understood, did not mean walking away from her.

It meant choosing to live with what she had given him instead of what had been taken away.

📒 Key vocabulary

• subside – become less intense or severe
• coping – managing a difficult situation in a way that allows you to continue
• chest – the front part of the body between the neck and the stomach
• disloyalty – the act of not being faithful to someone or something
• shook (shake, shook, shaken) – move suddenly because of fear or strong emotion
• donation centre – a place where people give items to be reused or given to others
• steering wheel – the round object in a car that the driver turns to control direction
• grief – deep sadness caused by loss, especially the death of someone loved

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