You grieved them while they were alive. In waiting rooms, at the kitchen sink, in the car after visits - you lost them in installments, and you're allowed to be tired in a way sudden-loss grief doesn't know about.
And then they died, and people said "at least you had time to prepare," as if any amount of watching someone leave prepares you for them being gone. Anticipatory grief doesn't pay down the debt. It just means you've been paying longer.
Now the room where caregiving lived is empty. The appointments, the meds schedule, the alarms - a whole second job, gone overnight, and your hands don't know what to do. The strange purposelessness is real. So is the quiet.
And if part of what you feel is relief - that it's over, that they're not suffering, that you can sleep - hear this clearly: relief and grief share a room in almost every long goodbye. Relief is not gladness that they died. It's the exhale of a body that carried something heavy for a very long time. You can miss them desperately and be relieved it's over. Both are love.