Valentine’s Day felt different this year. Not in a bad way actually, it was really nice. But usually, this day of love has always been filled with, well, love. Not hate, not indifference, just pure, unfiltered love. This year, though, the love I felt wasn’t from the people in my life who are still here; it was from the ones who have passed away. And let me tell you, that realization hit like a truck going 90 in a school zone.

My first big loss came when I lost my grandma Angeline. The first and only person who loved me for exactly who I was, no terms, no conditions, no “but if you just did this one thing differently” nonsense. She never treated me differently if she was at odds with someone attached to me, never spoke bad about me, and made sure no one else did either because they knew she was NEVER going for that. That woman loved me when it felt like the whole world was against me, and never cared if I was in the right or wrong—she always had my back. I remember being 13 and asking her if she would be at my wedding. (Back when I still believed love was in the cards for me, bless my little naive heart.) And I will never forget her saying, “I would love to be there, but I won’t be here when that happens. I’ll be long gone.”

I stared at her, my face getting hot, my throat closing up like I had just swallowed a whole Popeyes biscuit with no drink. “So, you’ll be dead? You think you’re God now?” Looking back, I have to laugh because the way she looked at me—shocked, like I had just stolen from the offering plate was priceless. Before she could respond, I doubled down: “If you want to leave me like everybody else, that’s fine. But now that I know how you feel, I’m leaving you first.” And with that, I dramatically stormed out like I was in a telenovela.

To be fair, I always knew she wouldn’t be around when I became an adult. I just knew losing her would destroy me in ways I wasn’t built to survive. I could lose everyone else because, deep down, I knew their love for me was conditional. If I did what they wanted, fed their egos, I could keep it. It was love I had control over. But my grandma? That love was irreplaceable. It just existed, freely, without me having to perform for it.

Later that day, I sat outside, staring into the overgrown garden she had loved, when she came and sat next to me. After a long silence, she hit me with, “Do you remember when you tried to run away because you said nobody loved you?” And I immediately burst out laughing, because for a lady with dementia, she sure as hell had no problem remembering my dramatic ass antics from when I was eight. “How do you remember that but not the names of people who live in your house?” I asked between wheezes. She just smiled and said, “Because I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to say goodbye to you either.”

And that’s when I knew two things: first, I was going to have to start preparing myself to live without her. Second, she was never actually going to leave me. She imprinted on me, like some Twilight werewolf soulmate-type shit. She was kind, genuine, and her own person, and she loved so fiercely because that’s how she loved herself. Even in death, she’s still with me. I still talk to her every day, still tell her everything, still cry to her, because we never actually said goodbye we just said, “I’ll see you later.”

Then there’s Jamarius, my childhood best friend and the first boy I ever really loved. We used to say, “Besties for the resties,” since we were nine years old, and I meant it. We clicked immediately—two versions of the same person in different fonts. He wore his heart on his sleeve, while I shoved mine into a box, locked it, and threw away the key. He was always too soft in my eyes, and I was always too harsh in his. But that’s what made us work.

I pictured him in my future coming to visit me in New York, complaining about the smell and the trash, but secretly loving it. I couldn’t wait for life to finally be good for us. But life had other plans. Our birthdays were three days apart, and for my 21st, I went to NYC for the first time and fell in love with it. I sent him Snapchats, telling him we had to go together one day. We talked, laughed, and said we loved each other, like always. And then three months later, he was gone.

When I got the call, I laughed. Because it had to be a joke I had just spoken to him. We had plans. But it wasn’t a joke. I didn’t cry for three days. I didn’t go to his funeral. I couldn’t. I stayed in my room, watching Netflix and wandering around Walmart for hours, because I was supposed to be at lunch with my best friend, not watching people post “RIP”s about him.

It wasn’t until 2022, when I found an old letter he had written me, that I made peace with it. One line read: “I know, no matter what, you’ll always love me.” And it clicked. He never had to wonder, second guess, or hear it said a million times he just knew. And that’s why, even now, nearly seven years later, I still talk about him with love, because we had it. That unconditional, no-matter-what kind of love.

And finally, there’s Sky, my cousin, my baby smooch. Sky was a fighter fearless, headstrong, and never one to back down. We were opposites in every way except for our temper. One time, I called her crying over some dude, saying, “But it’s okay, I’ll be okay.” And she, in classic Sky fashion, went, “No, T’yanna, it’s not okay. F*** him, his family, and his ugly-ass mom.”

I sat up, puffy eyed and snotty nosed, like, “Excuse me?” She doubled down and dragged him, his ancestors, and his bloodline through the mud. And honestly? It was poetic justice. That was Sky,she fought for the people she loved, even when they didn’t fight for themselves.

And that’s what got her killed. She spoke out against her abuser, and he took her life for it. People tried to paint her as “troubled,” as if she hadn’t just been a good person surrounded by bad ones. I was angry for months. But then I heard her in my head: “We’ve seen monsters before, this is nothing.” And that’s when I realized she wasn’t gone, either. She’s in everything I do, pushing me to live.

So yeah, Valentine’s Day felt different this year. But it was still full of love the kind that doesn’t leave, even when people do. Love is messy, painful, and sometimes a nightmare, but it’s also the thing that keeps us going.

So, no matter what you think or feel, somebody in this world loves you. And they would miss you if you were gone. Don’t forget that. ❤️