My Fiance Unexpectedly Dying + Work

Recently, my book collaborator asked me during a working session about the grieving process of leaving a traditional 9-5 corporate job. I remember trying to recall my first year after leaving corporate and the emotional journey that entailed.

But most importantly I remember saying “well I have never been through actual grief because I haven’t lost anyone significant in my life yet.”

My fiancé died the next week.

I will go over some small details because I know you are wondering what happened. This doesn’t offend me, by the way. I am just trying to stay careful with the details until the investigation is done.

I also just want to post things when I am ready for public discourse and articles to be written about it. Journalists are watching my content right now for more details for articles. It’s a lot.

Matthew was an amazing man in every way. He was confident, good looking, honest, charismatic, the life of the party, driven, etc... One day hopefully I can share a longer post on who he was and what he meant to me. In short, everything you love about my online persona is because of him.

He fell in love with my wit and courage wayyy before I knew I had it. And way before I started making content. He was obsessed with me in the best ways. He unconditionally loved me. It is so bittersweet to have a love that I know some people may never have in their life.

I hope you all are okay with me occasionally talking about him for a while. In my real life, I have such a huge support system and I am so thankful for it. At the same time, I try to rotate all of my support system people when it comes to talking about him. I know that people will move on much quicker than I will. Which is really scary and lonley to think about. For now, it’s really important for me to share about him. It’s the only way I can keep going.

This May 1st, Matthew would have been 13 years sober. Unfortunately there were a lot of objectively hard things on all fronts of his life that he had been battling for a couple of years. He was so strong for so long.

The week leading into Easter, his brain broke. I saw it. He couldn’t walk for a week. I’ll share more about that one day. In short, he was chronically in pain and had a hip replacement scheduled for July 8th. He was so close.

Then I never saw the real Matthew come back. The Matthew I knew and loved for 6 years left in late April when I found him overdosed on the floor. What followed was a very short but catastrophic sequence of events until his last day on June 4th.

He died under circumstances that are still under active investigation. I know some truths around all of this. Some things I will just never know.

The real Matthew would have not done what he did that morning of June 4th. It was such a tragic, catastrophic, violent, and public death. The drug-induced psychosis he was in did that. The real Matthew left in April.

After the shock of everything, I’ve come to peace with what I do and don’t know. What I know is that the real Matthew had already been gone for a while. He was suffering. And now he is no longer suffering. That is how I get through this.

So I am also posting this just to be honest with you all. Behind the scenes, from April until now, there has been some really serious stuff going on. I am royally traumatized but I will figure it out one day.

I do feel guilt about how I showed up online during this time frame including my failed course launch, my sponsored content, my Fortune conference appearance, and a CNN interview I filmed that’s coming out soon. I have been really emotionally wrecked for a couple of months and have just been hiding it and pushing through for Matthew and me. There was so much masking happening on camera. I feel some guilt and shame about that, and like I let you all down. And I am petrified that I will never be successful in the public eye again.

Because I am petrified to do this life without him.

I am now barely executing his estate with no will and failing every day at planning his funeral arrangements. And now that I do understand what it’s like to be grieving, I cannot fathom that people do this while in corporate America. This is ontological evil.

There is no number of bereavement days that would help me in this. I absolutely would’ve either already quit, been violent to someone in the workplace (I have never been in a physical altercation in my life), been very close to getting fired for something performance related, or I don’t know….committed a hate crime in the office out of retaliation or done something else that isn’t a “culture fit.” The list goes on….

I don’t know how all of you are behaving with decorum in the workplace during the grief of a loved one.

You all are very strong in a time and environment that has unnecessarily cruel expectations of you in grief.

I can’t even have a single finished thought without thinking of him.

The idea that laptop factory jobs are framed as our utmost priority and purpose in life is so unimaginably untrue.

Of course I always knew that. You know that, that’s why you’re hear. But I now know that in an even bigger way.

Matthew and I spent 6 years together, but really in laptop factory job years that was like 20. Because he met me when I was working remote during Covid lockdowns, so we were almost always together. He has worked for himself for 10 years so he always had ample time for me. Then I started working for myself and could be with him whenever I wanted. We spent closer to 24/7 together for 6 years. There weren’t any long work shifts keeping us apart.

I am so grateful for that. I cannot believe people lose their partners, parents, and other special loved ones while they can only see them on the weekends or a few hours a day.

If you ever wanted to take a risk on working in a different way, do it. Now.

Do it for me and Matthew.

I couldn’t imagine not having all that flexibility and time with him. I cannot imagine the possibility of that regret.

I thankfully do not have any regrets in his death. I showed up in every way I could for him, at any time of day. I was completely out of body from late April to June 4th. I subconsciously knew that death was always on the table. And I arranged my actions as such.

One day I will share more about this. It wasn’t a comforting time but a very profound period of my life.

I gave him my last words at least 3 times during this. I shared some of my last words to him on my recent Instagram post.

And that’s all thanks to not having a work schedule. If I had a regular job, I would have definitely been fired by now and even more screwed. So I want to thank you all in the most profound way possible for the flexibility I have today. So that I could have zero regrets in how I spent those last months of his life.

And that I can grieve on my timeline and not a work shift’s timeline through small cry breaks in a office bathroom or my car in the parking lot. I even sometimes have survivor’s guilt with that. How do I get to greive the loss of my future husband with dignity in my home and in sacred places on my schedule, and so many others don’t get to?

And there is literally no difference between you and me. I just had a Matthew that taught me how to believe in myself. Let him be that for you too.

I promise I will make this loss and tragedy worth it. For me, Matthew, and all of you. I promise I will find a way for all of this to make sense and impact us all to its fullest potential.

I will figure out how to be a 29-year-old widow one day. For now, I just focus on the next moment ahead of me.

I am committed to surviving. I have not yet been able to grapple with thriving without him.

One of my friends, the day it happened, told me: “Gabrielle, it’s just a tragedy. That’s all it is.” I think that saved my life. There were a few other things said by friends who visited me in those early days that were so profound I wrote them down in my journal.

I journal a lot. I am obsessedw ith remembering everything I am processing in the early stages of my grief. I think it’s because I go into prolonged periods of shock so I don’t want to forget anything.

I need to remember that there is nothing else I can do and that this is just a tragedy. I sometimes still get anxious worrying about whether he ate or how I can fix things. I still want to protect him. I miss every part of him. I worry that one day I will forget what his arms felt like when he’d hang on me.

He was the love of my life as I understood it.

And yes, I have a therapist, a ton of friends to call, spiritual programs, and church to get me through this. I promise I am not alone and am committed to getting through this.

One day I will learn how to get through this. It might just take a while. I appreciate the patience.

For now, enjoy this little vlog I made of us years back on my personal Instagram:

He always made sure I felt like I could do anything.