I Thought I Knew What Grief Was

I thought it was something deeply painful. So painful that it knocks you off your feet, leaves you breathless for a while, and makes the world feel impossible to navigate. But eventually, time passes. Life slowly returns, and one day you simply continue.

I didn't know that grief could be so long, so deep, and so all-encompassing. Since losing my eldest son, grief has been with me every single day. Sometimes quietly in the background. Sometimes fully present, asking for all my attention. Never truly leaving.

There was no choice. Step by step, I have learned what it means to live in a new way. In the beginning, grief felt destructive. It shattered the foundations I had built my life upon. The pain was overwhelming. Everything I had taken for granted suddenly felt uncertain and unfamiliar.

But with time, I began to notice something else.

Grief is not only about loss.

Grief is love searching for a new place within me. That doesn't mean the pain disappears. Or that the longing becomes smaller. It means that love slowly finds a new way of being.

I have also come to understand that every grief is as unique as a fingerprint. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. There is no timeline we are supposed to follow. Every person's journey is their own.

At some point, I realized I had to give my grief a voice. To allow both the pain and the love to become something that might support others. Because today I know how lonely grief can be.

I know what it feels like not to be understood. I know how difficult it can be to live with confusion, despair, guilt, anger, longing, or simply emptiness.

Sometimes grief is accompanied by fear. Loneliness. Hopelessness. The loss of joy. Or the feeling that the whole world keeps moving while you have somehow been left behind.

I also know how grief can continue to live in our bodies, our thoughts, and our relationships long after the loss itself.

But I have noticed something else as well. When grief is given time, courage, and a safe space to be exactly what it is, it slowly begins to speak.

Not always through words.

Sometimes through the body.

Sometimes through silence.

Sometimes through tears.

And sometimes, beneath it all, something begins to emerge that I never expected.

Not only pain.

But a deeper connection with myself, with love, and with life.

That was when I began to understand that, over time, it is not grief itself that changes, but our relationship with it. Not because the pain disappears. But because little by little, we learn to carry what once felt impossible to carry.

One thing I know for certain: It is easier when we do not have to carry it alone. And perhaps it is there that we slowly begin to see life differently. To notice more. To appreciate more. To recognize what truly matters.

I have learned that grief cannot be fixed or rushed. We cannot undo what has happened.

But we can create a space where everything that has happened can be seen and acknowledged. A space where every feeling is welcome. Where there is no need to hide our pain. Perhaps that is one of the greatest gifts grief can offer us over time.

Our relationship with grief can change.

Grief is love that slowly finds a new place within us.

If you feel you would like to walk through your grief with someone, you are warmly welcome.

You can learn more about my individual grief support sessions here →

Grief support