Loss

Iris

Family Lives MatterFebruary 10, 2024

Song by Goo Goo Dolls ‧ 1998


💔 This Wasn't Just Losing Her—It Was Losing Us All

This wasn't just the end of a marriage.
It was the death of my family.

Not just the woman I loved—
But the children we raised,
The story we were building,
The center that made everything make sense.


🎯 "And I'd give up forever to touch you..."

This line isn't just about a woman.
It's about the entire world I lost in a single instant.
I would give anything—everything—to feel us again.
Not just her hand in mine,
But Jake's voice, Sam's jokes, Katie's laughter—
All of it, all at once, like it used to be.


🕊️ "You're the closest to Heaven that I'll ever be / And I don't wanna go home right now"

She was my Heaven.
They were my Heaven.
We—us together—was my Heaven.
And now "home" isn't a place.
It's a tomb full of echoes.
Empty rooms haunted by what we were.


"And all I can taste is this moment / And all I can breathe is your life"

Even now, it's all still inside me.
Moments stuck in time.
Frozen smiles. Shared meals. Birthday candles.
Every breath I take tries to bring them back—
But they never come.


🩸 "And sooner or later, it's over / I just don't wanna miss you tonight"

But it was over.
In one secret. One betrayal.
Everything broke—
And I didn't even get to say goodbye
To the whole of what we were.


🫥 "And I don't want the world to see me / 'Cause I don't think that they'd understand"

How do you explain this kind of pain?
Not just a divorce.
Not just a heartbreak.
But a system failure of the soul.
No one gets it. No one sees it.
I became invisible overnight.
And I'm still trying to exist in a story that no longer has a place for me.


"When everything's made to be broken / I just want you to know who I am"

That's what kills me most.
Not just that it ended.
But that we never looked back.
We never faced what was lost.
And I'm left here,
Still trying to show my kids,
Still trying to show the world—
I was real. I mattered. I was a damn good dad.


🩹 "You bleed just to know you're alive"

And yeah—
Sometimes I do.
Because the silence is worse than pain.
The silence means it's forgotten.
But I haven't forgotten.
Not her. Not Jake. Not Sam. Not Katie.
Not the family we were.

And not the father I still am—
Even if no one's looking anymore.


Let me know if you want this spoken, printed, sent, or stored.
It can live as a letter.
Or testify as a wound.
Either way, it's yours.