(Part Four of the Brioche & Kris with a K arc)
Three weeks ago, I told you the story of Brioche and Kris with a K; two best friends who did everything together for decades, right down to receiving their cancer diagnoses just weeks apart.

Two weeks ago, we wrestled with the unbearable question: What happens when the prayers are the same, but the outcomes are not?

Last week, you read about waiting to die; the kind of grief that begins before the funeral, the kind that settles into the room long before the body does.

And now, here we are because this story is layered, because reality outdoes fiction, or at best, mirrors it and especially because some lives cannot be told in one neat instalment.

If you haven’t followed the arc, scroll back. If you cannot find it, ask me, and I will share it. I am unpicking this story thread by thread.

Today, we turn to someone we have not yet examined – Brioche’s husband.

He was faithful. Loyal. Kind. Willing. He cared for her with everything he had: heart, body, soul. They built a life together that people envied. A home. An empire of shared friends, family, and colleagues. Twenty-five years of woven history.

Until irreconcilable differences crept in. A bruised ego here and a broken heart there. Human emotion did what it does best and complicated perfection.

Their reign ended with drama, fatigue, misalignment and the quiet understanding that sometimes love shifts into something else. It was a shame, but c’est la vie.

They both moved on. Then Brioche died.

Here is where the story refuses to behave, because grief does not follow relationship status.

He was no longer her husband. A quarter of a century does not evaporate because the paperwork changed. When Brioche passed, he was left with a grief that had no socially acceptable container. He could not claim widower. He could not claim primary mourner. He was not the man standing at the head of the casket, but he was grieving.

Worse still, the new love of his life was someone Brioche had once called a friend. It had been a bitter argument when that relationship began, but he put his foot down; after all, Brioche had moved on, too, and he hadn’t been consulted. Why should he seek permission to rebuild his life?

On paper, he deserved happiness. In reality, he found it, but happiness and grief are not mutually exclusive.

He would wake at night, remembering the way Brioche used to laugh at something only they found funny. He would remember hospital corridors. He would remember how fiercely she once loved him. Then he would turn to the woman beside him, who was very much alive, and swallow the ache. How do you mourn your ex-wife in the presence of your new one? How do you grieve a life you once built without dishonouring the life you are building now?

Brioche’s family were not offering him warmth or absolution. Their grief was sharp, territorial. To them, he had forfeited certain rights when the marriage ended. There were no hugs waiting for him there. So, he stood alone, grieving someone he was no longer supposed to grieve, missing someone he was no longer supposed to miss, loving someone he was absolutely allowed to love, and feeling the quiet guilt of it.

This is not just a story about death. It is a story about what death exposes – unfinished emotions, complicated loyalties and how little room we give people to feel two things at once.

He was happy, heartbroken, relieved that her suffering had ended, devastated that she was gone. He did not regret moving forward. He sometimes wondered what might have been.

What a mess.

Grief is rarely tidy. It does not respect timelines, labels, or legal documents. It does not consult social etiquette before arriving.

And sometimes the grief no one wants to validate is the most suffocating kind, because there is no public script for it, no sympathy card, no rightful place to stand.

So, what does one do?

Perhaps you allow the grief to exist without justification, you accept that loving again does not erase loving before, or perhaps you make peace with the fact that happiness after loss is not betrayal — it is survival.

The #Unshakable truth is this:

Life is rarely clean. People are rarely singular, and grief does not ask for permission before it moves in.

Sometimes the bravest thing a person can do is hold joy in one hand and sorrow in the other, and refuse to drop either.

See you next week.

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IG Handle: @unshakable.is.a.state.of.mind