At 52 years old, Jay Torrence, better known to most as Jay King Holliday, considers himself an orphan.

In the last 10 years, the co-creator and co-founder of the annual spring break gathering, Big Boy Pride, has had to bury both his mother and father. His father, whom he admits he hadn’t always had the closest relationship with, died from cancer in October 2012. His mother, and the person he still considers his best friend, died suddenly in December 2019.

“There is something really confusing about it—being without both of my parents at 52. I am a 52-year-old orphan,” he proclaimed to The Reckoning. “It doesn’t seem that it should be as impactful as it is, but it is—coming to terms with the reality that I’ve lost a lot of my legacy. The people who connect me to my history are no longer present.”

Most of those who have experienced the loss of a parent admit that it changes them. The pain never goes away, and the loss creates an unfillable void. For Holliday, a New York native now residing in Atlanta, the losses have had a unique effect on him. Prior to his father’s passing, they had time to heal.

Barren, dark, and sedentary, the winter months can be emotionally challenging in general, and worse for LGBTQ+ people coping with the loss of a partner. One less table setting, one less gift under the tree,—the season can be filled with stark reminders of absence, at times made worse by a community that may accept but not necessarily embrace same-sex marriage. Surviving spouses can face invisibility among friends and even family that deny the nature of their relationship with the deceased—the “roommate” or “special friend” syndrome—or may find themselves feeling uncomfortable in hetero-centric grief counseling settings.

And yet the winter months, with their emphasis on togetherness and intimacy, can be exactly when LGBTQ+ people coping with grief need the most support. The Reckoning sat down with two community members navigating the loss of a longtime spouse. From rediscovering romance to awakening the author within, each man has used their own set of unique tools to navigate through the darkness, offering words of hope for others on the path out of their own personal winter.