What Counts As A Win Now?

Making It To Walmart With Pants On

There was a time in my life when a “win” meant something, I don’t know, substantial. A new job title or a big promotion. A big fat raise. A fancy dinner in a dress that zipped all the way up. Booking a trip to Europe. Buying a car without a co-signer. You know, the kind of wins that get likes on Facebook. That makes people proud of you.

That makes you proud of you.

Everything I thought mattered instantly snapped into a different, hyper-focused way when Adrian died. Like someone yanked me out of my life and forced me to look at it from a whole new angle. All the things I had once considered “wins” - the promotions, the milestones, the bank account balance - became laughably small.

Completely and totally irrelevant.

In that one single moment, as I stood there knowing my son was dead, I realized that nothing I had ever celebrated or worked for actually mattered. None of it. The only thing that mattered was lying there in front of me, and he was gone.

And then three months later, when I found my husband passed away, it reinforced it a thousand times over.

Nothing mattered. Not in the way it had before.

I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t remember how to BE. I couldn’t understand how people were still gossiping, going on bike rides, checking their email, buying a latte. I didn’t want to exist inside a world that could hold so much pain. And yet - I did. I existed. I got through one minute. Then another.

And for a long time, that was the win.

Do you understand me?

Just continuing to exist was the win. Waking up every morning was a win. Getting dressed was a win. Taking a shower was a win.

If you had told me that then, I would have laughed in your face, and not in a nice way. Because at that time I not only didn’t consider these wins, I didn’t have any interest in winning, losing, living, continuing, existing, putting one foot in front of the other. It wasn’t conscious. I wasn’t TRYING to be “successful.” I was barely holding on. So it took me a long time to understand that those were wins.

The concept of “success” when we are in grief has to change radically. At the time, I saw these actions as plodding forward dumbly, numbly, forced to still be here in an unrecognizable and unwanted world. I didn’t think I was accomplishing anything. I wasn’t giving myself gold stars. I was just barely functioning. Barely.

Only with time, with the perspective that grief brings, can we look back and see how enormous those small things really are. Now, I can marvel at the sheer effort of continuing to breathe after my son no longer did. Now, I can look at myself with compassion and say, “Damn. You kept going.”

I got out of bed the day after John died. Not because I wanted to, but because the dogs needed to pee and eat, and I figured I should at least keep them alive.

Win.

I drove to Walmart instead of ordering DoorDash one day. I didn’t talk to anyone. I don’t even think I made eye contact with a single soul (thank you, sweet angel of self-checkout!) But I got there, fully dressed- miraculously- and upright. I moved my body from my house to my car to the store and back. I remembered to bring the bag inside and put perishables in the fridge instead of leaving them on the counter.

Win. WIN.

I cooked something. I’m not saying it was good. But it was warm and there were vegetables in it. It was not Doritos and wine.

Big, huge freaking win.

I threw away the mail that had piled up for weeks. I texted a friend back. I said my son’s name out loud in public. I didn’t cry until noon. I put on pants with a zipper. I watched a movie and remembered it afterward.

These are the wins.

And now, I can see that.

Can you?

Can you look back at the earliest moments, days, after your person died and see the way you made it? Maybe you don’t even know how, still, today, but you can see that you did. You got through the funeral. You managed to brush your hair. You made a phone call. You took the trash out. You ate something on a plate. You changed your clothes. You walked around the block. You paid a bill. You breathed through another hour.

You survived every single moment you thought you could not.

And whether you can see those things as wins right now or not, I’m telling you—they were. Every one of them.

You did it. You are doing it. Not because you wanted to. Not because you were ready. But because grief knocked your ass down, and you still got up. That is not small. That is not nothing. That is the hardest kind of success there is. So I’ll say it again. Those were wins.

You, dear heart, are a walking, breathing, battle-weary victory.

See it. See those earliest moments and how you won, one tiny, horrible, agonizing battle at a time.

And, just like you can now look back on those earliest moments and see what you managed to do, there will come a day when you’ll look back on where you are right now... and see the wins here, too.

No, you probably can’t see them today. I get that. I really, truly do. But I am telling you, with every ounce of love I have... one day, you will.

You’ll look at this stretch of grief, the one you’re in now, and realize you kept going, even when it made no sense to. Even when it felt pointless, or endless, or unbearable.

And while you’re considering this moment you’re in, please don’t let the thought creep in that you should be “better” by now.

No. No, you shouldn’t.

You’re exactly where you are supposed to be and how you are supposed to be right now. And you won’t always be here. Just like you are no longer in those first moments of fuzzy agony, you will eventually move forward from this place, too.

You don’t have to believe it. I will believe it for you.

What matters most right now is that you keep seeing these tiny, impossible, imperfect steps for what they are. Wins, yes—but if you hate that word, call them something else. Call them survival. Call them effort. Call them the choice to stay when it would be easier to check out. Call them the quiet decision to keep breathing because you know, somewhere deep down, they want you to.

You don’t have to label them at all. You just have to recognize that each one counts. Each one is something your old self could never have imagined doing in the middle of this much pain.

All I ask is that you try to understand that you will not always be in this version of grief.

Someday, a future version of you might look back at today’s you with compassion and love, with awe and wonder. Not because you were graceful or “strong” or inspirational. But because you kept going when everything in you wanted to stop.

And that?

That is a win.