Because Grief Took Its Best Shot, Justice Lost Its Damn Mind, and I’m Still Here.
Grief changed the way I understand time.
There are more than three years of my life that feel blurred around the edges. I know I lived through them. I got up. I handled things. I answered messages when I could. I smiled in photographs. I probably even told people I was doing okay when I was nowhere near okay.
But I was not fully present.
A large part of me had gone somewhere dark, and I did not know how to call her back.
After my sisters, Azure and Val, were killed by a drunk driver, time did not stop. Honestly, that might have been easier to understand. Instead, the world continued as if nothing had happened.
People went to work.
They celebrated birthdays.
They complained about traffic.
They laughed over dinner.
The ocean kept moving. The birds kept making noise. The sun continued to rise with the absolute nerve to look beautiful.
Meanwhile, I was trying to understand how the world could remain so ordinary after mine had been ripped apart.
When two people you love are suddenly gone, grief does not arrive politely and sit in the corner. It moves into every room. It changes the temperature. It eats your food, sleeps in your bed, interrupts your thoughts, and follows you into places where you thought you might get a break.
It followed me everywhere.
It followed me into music.
It followed me into silence.
It followed me into the kitchen.
It followed me onto social media.
It followed me into the courtroom.
And for more than three years, it sat beside me while I fought just to get my sisters’ case to trial.
People hear the word “trial” and assume that is where the fight begins.
No.
The fight started long before anyone stood in front of a jury.
It was in the delays. The phone calls. The waiting. The questions that went unanswered. The feeling that I had to keep pushing so Azure and Val did not become two more names buried under paperwork and excuses.
That fight was exhausting, but it was different from the trial itself.
Before the trial, I was fighting to keep the case moving.
During the trial, I was fighting to breathe.
Inside the courtroom, my sisters’ final moments were dissected through testimony, reports, measurements, photographs, objections, and legal arguments.
To everyone else, it was evidence.
To me, it was Azure.
It was Val.
It was my family.
It was the phone call that split our lives into before and after.
The woman who was behind the wheel in the crash that killed my sisters was found not guilty. We, the family, sat through the evidence and bodycam of her admitting things we were not prepared for, and I believe that evidence told a very different story from the verdict we received.
A verdict may end a trial.
It does not automatically create truth.
It does not erase what happened.
It does not fill two empty chairs.
It does not repair a family.
It does not make me stop asking questions.
My understanding of justice will never be what it once was.
I used to believe that if the evidence was strong enough, the system would eventually arrive at the truth. It might take too long. It might be frustrating. It might be painful. But somewhere underneath all the procedure, I believed justice was still the goal.
I do not believe that so easily anymore.
Former Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens later pleaded guilty in a federal case connected to an FBI public-corruption investigation. I am not claiming that his federal case determined the outcome of my sisters’ case. I cannot make that claim.
What I can say is that watching a powerful official responsible for maintaining public trust plead guilty in a federal corruption case changed something inside me.
It made every unanswered question heavier.
It made trust feel foolish.
It made the word “justice” sound less like a promise and more like something families are expected to chase while already carrying the worst pain of their lives.
That realization created another kind of grief.
Not just grief for Azure and Val, but grief for the belief that institutions will do the right thing simply because doing the right thing is their job.
Sometimes they do not.
Sometimes the truth has to keep living outside the courtroom.
The Darkness Was Not Empty
People love butterflies.
They love the wings, the colors, the freedom, and all the pretty quotes about transformation. Put a butterfly on a mug and suddenly everybody is an expert on rebirth.
But nobody wants to talk about the dark part.
Nobody wants to talk about the cocoon.
The isolation.
The breaking down.
The long stretch where nothing looks beautiful, productive, or inspiring.
The part where the old form can no longer continue, but the new form has not yet appeared.
That was grief for me.
It was not graceful.
It did not come with soft music playing in the background.
It dismantled me.
I stopped wanting to sing.
That alone should explain how lost I was.
Music has been one of the deepest passions of my life. Singing is not simply something I do. It is part of how I understand myself. My voice has carried my joy, my confidence, my sensuality, my creativity, my anger, and my love.
Then grief came, and I did not want to use it.
Some songs hurt too much. Some melodies opened doors I was trying desperately to keep closed. Music could reach places inside me that I did not have the strength to visit.
So I stopped.
I also stopped wanting to communicate with people.
I did not want to explain how I felt. I did not want to answer, “How are you?” because most people are not prepared for the real answer.
They want to hear that you are hanging in there.
They want to hear that you are taking it one day at a time.
They do not want to hear that you are furious, depressed, confused, numb, exhausted, and wondering why everybody else gets to move on when your life is still standing at the scene of the crash.
I pulled away.
I stopped doing my online talk shows.
I stopped showing up the way I used to.
I did not want to be entertaining. I did not want to be “on.” I did not want to gather enough energy to appear fine for people who might become uncomfortable if I told them the truth.
I stopped working out.
I had lost 135 pounds. I knew what discipline felt like. I knew how strong I could be. I had worked hard to build a healthier relationship with my body and prove to myself that I could change my life.
Then grief knocked the wind out of me.
Some days, putting on workout clothes felt ridiculous. Why would I care about repetitions, steps, calories, or progress when my sisters were dead?
That may not be logical, but grief is not a logical roommate.
Food became comfort again.
Food was available.
Food was familiar.
Food did not ask questions.
It did not tell me to be strong.
It did not offer a quote about everything happening for a reason.
It gave me a few minutes of relief from an emptiness it could never actually fill.
I knew what was happening. That was part of the frustration. I understood the pattern, but understanding a pattern and having the strength to interrupt it are two very different things.
Depression does not always look dramatic.
Sometimes it looks like unanswered messages.
A silent microphone.
Workout clothes left untouched.
Another meal eaten for comfort instead of hunger.
A woman who can still laugh occasionally, so everyone assumes she must be fine.
I was not fine.
And pretending I was fine was making me feel even worse.
The Light Came Through My Family
The change did not happen through some grand revelation.
I did not wake up one morning healed, glowing, and ready to deliver an inspirational speech.
The light began to return at my family reunion.
I was surrounded by people who knew pieces of my story before grief became the loudest part of it. There was laughter, noise, music, dancing, photographs, stories, familiar faces, and the kind of love that does not need a perfect explanation.
I allowed myself to receive it.
That was a bigger decision than it may sound.
Pain had made me guarded. I had become used to holding myself together, keeping conversations manageable, and deciding how much of my truth other people could handle.
At the reunion, I let some of that go.
I talked about the pain.
I cried.
I laughed without immediately feeling guilty for laughing.
I allowed myself to enjoy the people who were still here without feeling as if that enjoyment betrayed the people who were gone.
I stopped pretending nothing was wrong.
Most importantly, I allowed myself to be me.
Not the strong version.
Not the public version.
Not the woman who had an encouraging answer for everybody else.
Just me.
A woman who missed her sisters.
A woman who was angry.
A woman who had been carrying too much for too long.
A woman who needed love without having to earn it by performing strength.
My family reunion did not erase my grief. It reminded me that grief was not the only thing left in my life.
Love was still here.
Laughter was still here.
Connection was still here.
I was still here.
That was the first real light I had seen in a long time.
A Verdict Did Not Buy My Silence
Even now, the shadows have not completely disappeared.
Members of the driver’s family continue to appear around my social media in ways that feel like trolling. Sometimes it seems as if they believe the not-guilty verdict gave them permission to treat what happened like some kind of victory.
It did not.
Two women are still dead.
My sisters are still gone.
My family still lives with the consequences.
They can feel justified if they choose. They can watch my pages. They can dislike what I say. They can convince themselves of whatever helps them sleep at night.
They cannot rewrite what happened.
They cannot make me stop saying Azure’s name.
They cannot make me stop saying Val’s name.
They cannot convince me that silence is the same thing as healing.
I refuse to stop talking about the injustice I witnessed and experienced.
That refusal does not weaken me.
It strengthens me.
Every attempt to make me uncomfortable reminds me why my voice matters.
Every unwanted visit to my social media reminds me that someone is listening.
Good.
Listen closely.
I will continue telling the truth as I understand it. I will continue speaking about the evidence I witnessed. I will continue speaking about the failures that changed my view of justice.
A courtroom verdict does not own my memories.
It does not own my grief.
And it damn sure does not own my voice.
Music Is Helping Me Come Back
I am beginning to sing again.
Not with some giant, dramatic comeback where the spotlight turns on and suddenly everything makes sense.
It started smaller than that.
Listening to a song without turning it off.
Humming.
Letting a melody stay in the room.
Feeling the urge to use my voice instead of hiding from it.
Music is not curing my grief. I do not expect it to.
It is giving my grief somewhere to go.
Sometimes pain needs more than words. Sometimes it needs a note. A rhythm. A vibration moving through your chest. Something your body can release when your mouth cannot explain it properly.
My voice is different now because I am different.
There is more experience in it.
More pain.
More anger.
More truth.
There is also more freedom because I no longer want to hold everything inside.
That has become one of the most important ways I care for my mental health.
I say what I feel.
I write it.
I cry.
I talk.
I sing.
I do not swallow every emotion just to make the people around me comfortable.
Holding everything in was not making me strong. It was making me sick, tired, isolated, and disconnected from myself.
Expressing my feelings does not mean every feeling controls me.
It means I acknowledge what is there.
My anger is real.
My sadness is real.
My disappointment is real.
My hope is also real.
They are allowed to exist in the same body.
There is freedom in finally telling the truth without polishing it first.
Azure and Val Have Given My Voice a New Assignment
I have a new purpose now.
It is one I never wanted, but it belongs to me.
I will tell Azure and Val’s story.
I will talk about what drunk driving took from my family.
Maybe someone will hear their names before deciding to drive after drinking.
Maybe someone will hand over their keys.
Maybe someone will call a ride.
Maybe a friend will stop worrying about being polite and take the keys away.
Maybe one family will not receive the phone call that changed mine forever.
That possibility matters to me.
It does not make my sisters’ deaths acceptable. I will never call what happened a blessing. I will not wrap tragedy in pretty language and pretend I am grateful for the lesson.
I would rather have my sisters.
Period.
But since I cannot change what happened, I can decide what I do with the love, pain, rage, and truth that remain.
I can turn them into music.
I can turn them into advocacy.
I can use them to interrupt somebody’s terrible decision.
I can refuse to let Azure and Val become two names people heard once and then forgot.
Their story is not over because I am still telling it.
So, Consider This Fair Warning
I am coming back.
For anyone who got comfortable with my silence, please adjust accordingly.
You are going to see more of me.
More music.
More talk shows.
More honest conversations.
More adventures.
More laughter.
More snark, because apparently grief did not manage to kill that.
I am returning to my body too. Not from shame and not because I intend to punish myself for needing comfort.
I want to become healthier because this body carried me through hell.
It deserves care.
It deserves movement.
It deserves good food, strength, rest, joy, and the chance to thrive again.
I am not trying to become the woman I was before Azure and Val died.
She is gone too.
I am becoming the woman who survived losing them.
She is stronger, but not because she never breaks.
She is stronger because she no longer hides the broken places.
She is more determined.
Less willing to shrink.
Less interested in being liked by people who require her silence.
More committed to standing her ground.
More committed to justice.
More committed to the purpose she now understands she was meant to fulfill.
I see the light.
I am still clawing my way out of the dark, and I will not pretend otherwise. Some days the darkness still grabs hold of me. Some days grief shows up without warning and sits directly on my chest.
But the light grows brighter every day.
I can see music again.
I can see adventure.
I can see health.
I can see laughter that does not feel like betrayal.
I can see a future that holds more than pain.
The cocoon was never comfortable, and I would never have chosen it. But the darkness was not empty.
Something was happening there.
Something was being stripped away.
Something was learning how to breathe differently.
Something was growing wings.
Inside this darkness, I carry a story that needs to be told.
A story that may stop someone from driving drunk.
A story that may help another grieving person understand that disappearing for a while does not mean they are gone forever.
A story that may show someone living with depression that even a tiny opening in the dark is still an opening.
I am not completely free yet.
I am still finding my way toward the light.
But perhaps my story can become a beacon for somebody else who is trying to find theirs.
My wings are still unfolding.
My voice is still returning.
My body is still healing.
My purpose is becoming clearer.
And I am still here.
