How do you grieve someone you weren’t supposed to love?

I knew he was married.

even as a kid,
i was sharp-eyed and observant like a fox,
learning to piece together things i wasn’t supposed to understand.
that knack for noticing the unspoken turned into a skill i carried into adulthood.

i never saw him during the day but only late at night.
we were told to call him our “uncle” even though i barely knew him.
whenever he came around,
we were sent off to bed like little secrets.
he was the real secret tho.
yesterday…

I found out the not so secret that he passed away.

cancer.
fuckin’ cancer.

even though he was doing wrong in his own life,
the vixen he was tangled up with who is a relative of mine,
loved him deeply.

“he was the love of her life,” i said when i heard the news.

…and i knew it was true.
even though they went their own separate ways,
i could tell she never got over him.
it’s hitting her hard and i can’t judge because i get it.

it made me think about all the wolves i’ve let into my own heart.
the ones i started to love even when that love was one-sided.
therapy taught me to stop running after what wouldn’t chase me back,
but still,
death has a way of stopping you in your tracks.

when someone dies,
whether you loved them or just wanted to,
it’s like a door slamming shut.
the “what-ifs” vanish and the “someday” you counted on ends.
all you’re left with are the questions you’ll never get to ask.
so i was left wondering:

Is the grief more about losing them—or losing the possibility of what could’ve been?