Simply Put, Grief Is...
Present and then some
I started writing different versions of this week’s newsletter with some amazing analogies. I compared grief to quicksand and then to kinetic sand, which makes so much sense and may be an analogy I revisit one day. But then, as I kept writing and deleting sentences, I realized that this week, to be good company and so you feel like you’re in good company, all I have to be is honest and straightforward.
No matter how much time goes by since you lost a loved one, there will still be days when it really, really hurts. It won’t just feel like a dull ache from a wound that’s scabbed over. It’ll feel fresh, recent, and vulnerable.
You’ll recognize some of the ways you grieve on those days because it will look and sound like it did back then. Like this week…this week, I feel young. Every time I remember that my mom’s death anniversary is on Friday, I am suddenly 10 again. I recognize myself quietly sitting on the couch and staring like I did back then. Or I’ll struggle to stop talking because endless sentences are the only way I remember I filled the void her death left behind.
I’m older now. I have different coping mechanisms. On less eventful days, my grief practices look like those of a woman who has 22 years under her belt. I have my shit tied together nicely. On very eventful days, my shit is everywhere, it’s not tied, and I don’t have the energy to care to try. Peace looks like accepting that I don’t have to try.
It used to bother me to see all my pieces laid out like my mom just died five minutes ago, and I didn’t know left from right. In my mind, a voice (probably that of my 6th-grade teacher) still says, “She needs to get over it by now. Why hasn’t she moved on? She needs to stop crying. She shouldn’t react like this when it’s been so long.”
I used to feel ashamed that my pain felt so fresh on weeks like this. But now it’s turned into my quiet reminder that inside of me, there’s a younger me who will always feel like her mom just died and she doesn’t know left from right.
She’s the brave, feeling part of who I am now. She keeps my compass pointing north and my anchors strong. To feel with her isn’t proof that I’m living wrong or in the past. It doesn’t mean I’m not healing, either. Simply put, grief is accepting that even though my mom died once on January 10, 2003, as her daughter, it takes visceral effort to remember. Her dying is unnatural. It’s every or any word that, when boiled down, means “unbelievable.”
It sucks and is unbelievable to lose anyone whose love defines you and for whom you defined love. Our brains and hearts were never equipped to square away this reality. We are only equipped to hold it in our palms, stare, and admit that some days, this griefy shape-shifting form is tied to the mood shifts, the nonstop talking, or the unexpected tears.
This week, as I honor my mom’s young life and the life I’ve built for myself since she’s been gone, I admit that I can both believe something and find it unbelievable at the same time. I miss my mom because, of course, I miss the person who brought me into this world because I’m still here, and she isn’t. From the first moment I was born, I existed in her context. I am her daughter. I came from her body. I have her eyes.
I grew up. I sound like her. I live a life far from what she could have imagined and anything she lived to see. She would be proud if she were here. Instead, I am sad today because she isn’t. And that’s okay.
I fought years of silenced grief to be able to admit what grieving out loud looks like for me. It’s still quiet. It’s still reserved. But it’s noticeable because I notice it and my fiancé notices it and if there’s a heaven, my mom is finding a way to mother me from up above because she notices it too.