What I haven’t said (until now)

Part one of a quiet series I’m sharing — letters that tell the truth of where I’ve been, and how I found my way through.

For years, I’ve been the one others turn to in crisis. The calm voice in chaos. The strategist. The fixer. The one who holds space, sees patterns, and helps people find their way forward when everything feels like it’s breaking.

But what I rarely talk about is the cost.

I built my strength in hospitals, on airplanes, in courtrooms — fighting for my son’s life when everyone else had given up. I made international calls to professors I’d never met, asking them to trust a mother’s instinct over protocol. I pushed for experimental surgeries across borders, even when the experts said no. I learned how to speak clearly while shaking. I learned how to command a room full of specialists when I hadn’t slept in three days.

And I kept doing it. For years.
Because I had to.
Because that’s what it took.

Eventually, that became my normal.

I moved through airports like a diplomat. I learned the language of pharma, of politics, of high-stakes negotiation. I could write government appeals by day and sit by a hospital bed all night. I got good at holding the impossible without flinching.

And I brought that into my work — the intensity, the clarity, the refusal to accept “impossible” as an answer. That’s how I led. That’s how I coached. That’s how I lived.

Until Benjamin died.

Then everything went quiet.

The fire that had carried me — to act, to advocate, to solve — vanished. There was no fight left. There was nothing to push against. I didn’t want to hold space for anyone. I didn’t want to be strong. I didn’t want to lead.

I wanted to disappear.

And for a while, I did.

Not dramatically. Quietly. I pulled back from public spaces. I stopped trying to “be inspiring.” I took long walks at the summer house. I let myself stop performing. And I cried in the bath — not once, not symbolically, but often. The bath became my sanctuary. The only place I could be completely alone. Fully unarmoured. Water, warmth, and silence.

There were days I didn’t want to speak to anyone. Days I couldn’t answer emails because the thought of writing words felt like an effort I couldn’t justify. I remember thinking, How do I return to a world that expects me to make sense? When everything inside me had been undone.

But grief, like truth, doesn’t work on deadlines.

It moves how it wants. It teaches in silence. It carves out space you didn’t know you had.

Slowly, something began to shift.

Not a comeback. Not a rebrand. Something more elemental.

I started listening — to my body, to the way a conversation made me feel, to the weight I’d been carrying that wasn’t mine anymore. I stopped asking what’s next. I started asking what feels true. I let go of trying to hold it all.

There’s still grief.
There’s still tenderness.
But there’s also something else now: presence. Depth. A new kind of power.

And I wanted to say this out loud — not because I have a lesson to share. But because I know how many of you are carrying something quietly. How many of you are still being the strong one when what you really need is permission to fall apart.

You don’t need to prove anything.
You don’t need to keep holding it all together.
You don’t need to be okay.

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is stop.

This isn’t a polished story. There’s no crescendo. Just me, still here. A little cracked. A little slower. But clearer than I’ve ever been.

Thanks for reading.

Love,

Rita

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