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If there’s one thing that became crystal clear even in just the day after John’s death on Days of Our Lives, it’s that Marlena would not be facing her loss alone. Yes, she mourned quietly in her room in between visitors, but even before word spread too far, her day was spent welcoming caring friends into her home. And throwing EJ out of it.

As Paulina noted, it’s how we come together through tragedy that defines us. Eventually, though, that coming together will end, life will move forward and a new normal will have to be established.

One of the things we asked back when Paula Cwikly and Jeanne Marie Ford spoke with us was if they could give us an idea of what Marlena’s life will be like without John. They could, but it already has our hearts aching for what’s to come for Marlena.

“Marlena’s world has changed forever,” the scribes shared. But, they make absolutely clear, “the world has not stopped.” This may be the end of “Jarlena’s” story, but it’s just the beginning of Marlena’s next chapter. It’s what Marlena told John right at the end, selflessly letting him know that if he wanted to rest, he could. He’d fought hard enough and he could pass on knowing that his family and loved ones would be OK and carry him in their hearts forever.

“Just as in real life,” the writers share, “as the days and weeks and months go by, everyone around her has to go back to their lives. The food and the flowers and the visits and calls stop coming, leaving her to find her new normal, who she is without John.”

The good news is that Marlena is and has always been a strong, brilliant woman, respected in the community with a critically important career — especially in a town with as much trauma as Salem. She’s a therapist. Marlena knows how to handle grief. Heck, she’s been helping Julie deal with Doug’s loss for months and was a big part of getting the mourning Horton matriarch to rejoin the world.

But while we wish we could say that means she makes it through this loss without trouble, we can’t. And honestly, it wouldn’t be true to life if we could. It’s one thing to know how to deal with loss, it’s quite another to experience it and push through it. The heart rarely listens to the mind, no matter how calmly it tries to explain things.

As Cwikly and Ford explained, Marlena “finds that advice on coping with grief is a lot easier to give than to take.”

For now, at least, Marlena’s surrounded by loved ones (you can see how everyone’s related to John here), those from out of town and longtime locals. Even when the visits stop, Belle, Brady and Tate are all living with her, ensuring that Marlena doesn’t have to go home to an empty house. Abe and Paulina seem to have moved into the same building and Kayla’s right there at work with her friend, day after day.