🕯️ Two Years Without You: Honoring Hunter on the Second Anniversary

Geri Watson
Jan 9
3 min read

Two years. It feels impossible that so much time has passed, and yet the ache still knows exactly where to find me.

Grief has its own calendar; one that doesn’t follow months or seasons, but memory, love, and the shape of absence.

December 18th marks two years since Hunter died, and the world is still learning how to hold that truth. I am still learning how to hold that truth.

Anniversaries like this are not just dates. They are thresholds; places where the past and present meet, where love and longing rise together, where the heart remembers with a clarity that feels both tender and sharp.

🌙 Year Two: The Quiet, Complicated Grief

People often imagine the second year as easier. But those who have lived it know the truth: year two is its own kind of hard.

The shock has softened, but the permanence has settled. The world has moved forward, but your heart still carries the weight. The support that surrounded the early days has thinned, but the grief remains steady.

In year two, you may find:

The ache is quieter, but deeper
The longing is softer, but more persistent
The memories are gentler, but more vivid
The reality is clearer, but harder to accept
The love is unchanged, but the world feels different

This is not regression.

This is grief doing what grief does; evolving, reshaping, teaching, revealing.

🌿 The Love That Lives Beyond the Years

Two years without Hunter does not mean two years without love.

Love has not dimmed.

Love has not faded.

Love has not loosened its hold.

If anything, love has grown; not in the way we wanted, but in the way grief demands:

In the way you speak his name
In the way you carry his memory
In the way you honor who he was
In the way you continue to love him in absence

Love is the thread that time cannot sever.

🌧️ What the Heart Remembers

Anniversaries bring memory to the surface; sometimes gently, sometimes like a wave.

You may remember:

The sound of his voice
The way he laughed
The small details that made him who he was
The moments you shared
The future you imagined
The day everything changed

These memories are not wounds.

They are evidence of a bond that still lives.

🕯️ A Ritual for the Second Anniversary

If you want to honor Hunter today, here is a gentle ritual to hold the day with intention:

1. Light a candle at a time that feels right.

Let the flame represent the love that continues.

2. Speak his name aloud.

Names are sacred. Names keep memory alive.

3. Hold an object that connects you to him.

A photo, a piece of clothing, a stone, a letter, a song; anything that carries his presence.

4. Speak one truth from your heart.

It might be:

“I miss you.”
“I carry you.”
“You are still part of my life.”
“Two years, and the love remains.”

5. Sit in silence for a moment.

Let the love and the grief coexist.

This ritual is not about closure.

It is about connection.

🌤️ What We Carry Forward

Two years later, you carry:

The love that shaped you
The memories that sustain you
The lessons he left behind
The ways he changed you
The parts of him that live in your becoming

Grief is not the end of the story.

It is the continuation of love in a new form.

🌙 Two Years Without You, But Never Without Love

Anniversaries are tender because they remind us of what was lost; but also of what remains.

Hunter’s life continues in memory, in story, in ritual, in the quiet ways he shaped the world around him.

Two years without him does not mean two years without his presence.

It means two years of learning how to love him differently.

Two years of carrying him forward.

Two years of honoring the truth that he mattered; and still matters.

🕯️ You Don’t Have to Walk This Day Alone

At Orion’s Legacy Editing, I believe in honoring the anniversaries; the tender ones, the heavy ones, the ones that reshape the heart.

Whether you’re writing your story, creating ritual, or simply trying to make sense of this day, I’m here to walk with you.

Your grief matters.

Your remembering matters.

Hunter’s story deserves space.