Always Choose to Love

Today, I celebrate what would have been my third wedding anniversary. On July 20th, 2019, Brady and I stood before our closest friends and family and vowed a lifetime of love to one another. Neither one of us believed that our marriage would end just four months later, on November 25th, when Brady died of […]

A Weary Widow

Grieving—the process of coping with immense loss—looks different to everyone and will change at various points in the grieving process. Recently, grief has presented itself to me in a disguise of fatigue. No matter how much rest I get, I cannot dodge the wave of exhaustion that sweeps over me. Although my mind is constantly […]

Ring the Bell

Four years ago today, my beloved Brady celebrated an end to months of chemotherapy by ringing the end-of-treatment bell. On the ninth floor of Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, he rang the bell signaling an end to having drugs pumped through his body, and it marked a beginning to a healthier and cancer-free life. I remember […]

It Still Stings

I don’t know if this is just me and my inability to adapt to the weather, but I think it’s been so incredibly freezing lately. My fingers become numb on the walk to class each morning in the frozen tundra of Pennsylvania. When I arrive home every evening, I crank up the heat and impatiently […]

There Will Be a Day

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a blog on this site. Even though I haven’t publicly posted for months, I have still been processing so many of my thoughts and feelings as I’ve continued to grieve my husband’s death. Attending college this fall (in person) has given me the privilege of processing these emotions […]

July

The seventh month of the year has brought me so much joy in my time on this earth. The very best days and weeks of my life have occurred in this summer month, and I can’t help but reflect on their memories this July. In 2018, I traveled to South Africa to attend the Global […]

A Proud Widow

Most people are ashamed or regretful about the worst parts of their lives. A broke person won’t brag about their $100,000 of debt. A drug addict doesn’t want to mention their addiction. An adulterous man doesn’t want to explain why his ex-wife divorced him. Being widowed at the young age of 19 has been the […]

I Hate Cancer

I hate cancer. I don’t hate much in this world, but I hate cancer with every fiber of my being. My husband died of Ewing Sarcoma (bone cancer), and I saw how the disease betrayed him and deteriorated his body without Brady’s permission. From the nausea to the back pain to the numbing of his […]

Moving On?

Recently, I have started to work at Walmart as a cashier. There are many pros to this job, but my favorite aspect of this work is that I have the opportunity to talk to hundreds of people each day. It is not rare for me to talk with my customers about their upcoming weekends, or […]

My Maui

When I was thirteen years old, I desperately wanted a ragdoll kitten. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the ragdoll breed, ragdolls are big, beautiful, and affectionate cats who typically form an incredibly close bond with their owners. I was drawn to these animals and I begged my parents to allow me to […]

Half A Year

It feels like I became a widow yesterday. It feels like only 24 hours has passed since my young husband took his last breath, but it’s been six months. At the same time, it feels as though I’ve always lived alone. It feels like Brady has been gone for years, but it’s been six months. […]

Sympathy vs Empathy

Most people think of sympathy and empathy as interchangeable ideas. The reality is that sympathy and empathy are completely different in practice, and after becoming a widow, I’ve been shown both. Sympathy, according to my quick google search, is the “feeling of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune.” I would say most everyone feels […]

Happy Birthday

Dear Brady, Today would be your 19th birthday. You never really cared about your birthday, and most years we celebrated your birth on a day other than May 6th. If you were alive and healthy, we would be spending this day studying for finals together in isolation! I probably would’ve attempted to cook dinner for […]

Getting Engaged

The day was April 18th, 2019. It was Maundy Thursday, the Thursday before Easter. My high school conducted an early dismissal the day before each holiday break throughout the school year. This meant that I had a half a day of school on this Thursday in April before my short Easter break began. Brady went […]

He Lives

This Easter obviously looks a lot different than most. For the first time in my life, I didn’t spend this joyous morning in my white tights at my home church fellowshipping with others. Instead, I woke up alone. This morning was still and quiet. The Easter bunny didn’t show up for me, I was only […]

Wife to Widow

I married the love of my life on July 20th, 2019. I woke up that morning, giddy and excited to make the lifelong commitment to my love, Brady Hunker. I really liked being a wife, but I loved being Brady’s wife. I selflessly put him first, no matter the cost. I loved him with every […]

Lonely

In the first few weeks following my husband’s death, I was exhausted, unmotivated, and lonely. I slept most of the day, and I did a lot of crying in bed. Also, since my family was either at school or at work, I found myself alone a lot. Once I went back to college in January, […]

Thinning Gap

Since Brady’s death in November, I have felt this gap that separated me from the world. While I was here sitting in my grief, the world was somewhere else. The world carried on, and was filled with happy and successful individuals who were living their best lives. This separation made me feel so alone; it […]

Our First Kiss

In the spring of 2015, I had the role of Belle in my school’s musical, “Beauty and the Beast.” Everyone knows that Belle kisses the Prince at the end of the story. As a fourteen year old girl who hadn’t kissed anyone before, I was very nervous about kissing the junior boy who played the […]

Joy

I’ve experienced so much growth and joy in the past few days. The Lord is so good to me. He has guided me to some remarkable friends that are on fire for Jesus as much as I am. I have so many stories I could share…there are so many ways God has moved to change […]

No One Is Safe

I feel like every time I open Facebook or watch the news, I am faced with tragedy. Teen Dies of Suicide. Man with Child Killed in Daytime Shooting. Families Die in Helicopter Crash. My heart breaks as I see all of these stories, and many others. I am reminded that tragedy doesn’t discriminate; everyone will […]

His Necklace

Sometime after Brady was diagnosed with bone cancer, he told me he wanted to buy a gold cross necklace. I thought it was a good idea, so I helped him look for some different ones. We went to the mall once, and there was a kiosk that was selling some gold cross necklaces! I saw […]

Sunday Mornings

I have recently moved back into the apartment that Brady and I shared together. Some think this is silly, I didn’t think twice about it. Moving back into our home has allowed me to recall so many memories about living here with Brady. On this Sunday morning, I find myself reminiscing even more than usual. […]

Grief is Complicated

Before my husband died, my knowledge of grief was extremely limited. Like most people, I thought that there were five linear stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance). And while I’m only six weeks into this “grieving thing,” I can say for certain that my grief does not come in linear stages. Each day […]

Five Months

If Brady was still alive, today would have been our five month wedding anniversary. Days like today creep up on the grieving. It’s not a obvious pain like Christmas or a Birthday, but a day like today would be so different if Brady was here. We would have been celebrating five months of marriage, toasting […]

How did this happen?

Here is a super quick summary of my life with Brady… I met a boy named Brady in 7th grade, and quickly fell for him. We became best friends, and eventually started dating! We did everything together, and Brady always tried his best to make me smile and laugh. Soon after our relationship became more […]