Nobody tells you that grief can feel like a second skin.
That you can be standing in a supermarket.
Choosing between two kinds of cereal and suddenly be so overwhelmed by loss that you have to hold on to the shelf to stay upright.
That you can laugh at something genuinely funny.
And feel guilty about it an hour later.
That some mornings it's heavy from the moment you open your eyes.
Before you have even fully remembered why.
Grief is one of the most universal human experiences.
Every single person who has ever loved something.
A person,
A relationship.
A version of their life.
A future they had planned.
As known laws.
And yet.
.
.
We talk about it as if it's something to recover from.
To move through in a neat and timely fashion.
To eventually get over.
You don't get over grief.
You'll learn to carry it differently.
Here is what I want you to understand.
Grief is not a sign that something went wrong.
It is the price of love.
It only exists because something mattered.
Because someone mattered.
And that.
Matters.
What makes grief so difficult is not just the loss itself.
It is the way the world around us tends to rush it.
The way people become uncomfortable with grief that goes on too long.
The condolence cards stop coming.
People stop asking.
Life for everyone else.
Continues.
At its usual pace.
And you are left with something enormous.
And wordless that doesn't fit neatly into the spaces.
Your day provides for it.
Grief is also non-linear in a way that surprises most people.
You can feel like you are doing well,
Genuinely moving forward.
And then.
.
.
A song,
A smell.
A particular quality of afternoon light.
Brings it all rushing back.
This is not regression.
This is how grief works.
It moves in waves.
Some small enough to navigate.
Some that knock you clean off your feet.
And the waves.
Don't mean you are not healing.
They're mean.
You loved something real.
One of the most important things I have learned about grief is that It doesn't matter.
Want to be fixed.
It doesn't want to be rushed,
Managed,
Or spiritually bypassed with the reminder that everything happens for a reason.
It wants to be felt.
It wants to be acknowledged.
Each one.
Psalm 1 even if that someone is just you.
Alone in a quiet room.
To say.
This loss is real.
What I had was real.
And I am allowed to grieve it fully.
Let's try a practice together.
I call it.
Tending the flame.
Gently close your eyes and take one slow breath.
And place one hand gently over your heart.
And bring to mind.
What you are grieving.
Whether that is a person,
A relationship.
A dream?
A part of yourself you have had to let go of.
Now imagine that grief as a small flame inside your chest.
Not dangerous.
Or out of control.
And sacred.
And real.
What is it?
Without trying to extinguish it.
Without trying to make it bigger either.
Simply.
Acknowledge it is here.
Now breathe toward it gently.
The way you might cup your hands around a candle on a windy night.
Not to put it out.
But to protect it.
This flame is not your enemy.
It's love.
With nowhere left to go.
And it deserves to be tended.
Not extinguished.
You can return to this practice anytime grief arrives.
Not to make it go away.
But to honor what it means that it is still here.
Grief is not a sign.
That you are broken.
It's a sign.
That you loved well.
And that is birth everything.
