I used to think that grief would arrive loudly. Like a thunderstorm. Something obvious and violent that couldn’t be missed. I was wrong. It felt more like the air after one had passed. Like something in the atmosphere had shifted and wasn’t going back.
Death has a strange way of freezing things. A relationship stays exactly where it was, in its last version. And you’re left with the last edit. The words you didn’t say. The calls you meant to make. The version you thought you’d have time to change.
People say loss leaves an empty space. I don’t think that’s true. It leaves something that feels occupied. Heavy. Because when someone mattered, their absence does not feel hollow. It has weight.
You notice it in small ways first. Reaching for your phone to text someone who no longer exists in the present tense. Laughing at something and then pausing, because they would have liked that. Because you would have told them. The ordinary moments are the hardest. The ones that once felt too small to pay attention to.
And then there’s the part no one prepares you for. The world still keeps going. The sun still rises. People still complain about traffic. Nothing stopped when they left. It feels wrong. Almost insulting.
We are told grief comes in stages. Neatly arranged. As if the mind agrees to move through pain in order. But it doesn’t. Anger shows up on quiet days. Acceptance disappears without warning. Some mornings feel steady, others don’t. There is no straight line.
And somewhere along the way, you realise something else. That the people we lose do not ask us to prove our love by suffering forever.
Grief changes. Not because the love fades, but because it has to make room for living. What once cut sharply becomes something you can carry. The deep wound becomes a scar. You find yourself laughing again and feel guilty for it, until you understand that laughter isn’t betrayal. It is survival.
The person you lost no longer grows in the world, but they continue to grow in you. In your habits. In the way you speak. In the things you care about. In the way certain moments still reach for them without thinking.
And one day, you think of them, and it doesn’t take your breath away. It still hurts. But the pain feels familiar now. Less like a wave knocking you over, more like something you know how to stand inside.
Grief leaves you with a difficult understanding. That everything precious is temporary. That everything meaningful is borrowed. And still, we choose to love.
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Diane
