He is gone… but what broke me was not only that

When Jason died, my world didn’t just collapse—it crumbled piece by piece. But what shook me most wasn’t the grief of his loss. It was the cruelty that followed.

I expected to grieve with my family. Instead, I had to defend my children and our home against someone who was supposed to be supporting us—his mother.

We were a family—even if she didn’t want to admit it.
Jason and I had only been married for two years, but what we had built together was as strong as a lifetime. He not only loved me—he chose my children, Ava and Noah, without hesitation.

He was there for her, from bedtime stories to pancakes for breakfast, picking her up from school, and fixing her bike. He never tried to replace her father. He simply became her home. Our beginning wasn’t a traditional one, but it was a real one.

His mother Eleanor saw things differently.

She never said it to my face—at least not at first—but I sensed her condemnation in every cold look. Once, I heard her over the phone line in the hallway.

“She trapped him. They’re not even his.”

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