Just over three years ago, one of the best friends I have ever had died. Suddenly. Today I walked with another very alive and healthy friend—one I’m grateful for—but we followed the same route Steph and I used to walk 30 years ago. Often. Grief crept in this afternoon like a cold punch in the heart. It was sneaky and rude, and right on time.
Grief is not tidy. It doesn’t call ahead or show up when it’s convenient. It arrives uninvited, kicks off its shoes, and settles in like an old friend who’s forgotten they were only meant to visit. For me, grief was not a crashing wave or a cinematic breakdown in a rainstorm. It was quieter. It moved like fog. It made coffee taste different. It rearranged my relationship to time. And oddly, it taught me more about love than happiness ever did.
When people talk about grief, they often reach for metaphors. Waves. Seasons. Storms. But the truth is, grief isn’t poetic when you’re in it. It’s missing your exit on the highway because your brain short-circuited when the woman next to you at the crosswalk laughed exactly the way she used to. It’s standing in a grocery store staring at a brand of soup your ex used to buy, wondering how it’s still on the shelves like nothing happened. It’s normal life, suddenly charged with meaning in all the wrong places.
The Nature of Grief
I used to think grief was reserved for death. But I’ve learned it shows up anytime something significant is taken from us: a person, a marriage, a dream, a version of ourselves we thought we’d grow into. It’s not just about what’s gone. It’s about what remains in its place. The echo. The blank spot. The muscle memory of what used to be.
We talk about the five stages—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance—as if they come with a guidebook and a punch card. But grief is not a spin class. You don’t graduate from one phase to the next with the sweat of progress on your brow. You can be in all five stages before lunch, then repeat them in reverse order during dinner. And sometimes, you find yourself in a sixth stage nobody mentions: boredom. Yes, there is a point where grief becomes dull, like an unpaid parking ticket that still needs to be dealt with, just not today.
A Personal Education in Loss
The first time I grieved as an adult, it was embarrassingly textbook. I wore oversized sweaters. I drank too much wine. I reread Joan Didion like she was scripture. I thought if I just felt it all, it would pass through me like a flu. But grief is not the flu. It doesn’t pass. It grafts itself onto you and becomes part of your architecture. You don’t “get over” it. You get used to carrying it.
I remember walking down a tree-lined street one September, the kind of crisp afternoon that should have felt hopeful. A song came on in my earbuds—one of those accidental gut punches that knew exactly where to find me. And I stopped. Right there on the sidewalk, in front of an old stone house with a hydrangea bush and a crooked porch swing, I cried. Not because I was overwhelmed, but because for a fleeting second, I could feel their presence in the space between the notes. Not gone. Just… elsewhere. Somewhere unreachable but not entirely absent.
It occurred to me in that moment that grief isn’t the absence of love. It’s the continuation of it. The long shadow love casts after the light has changed.
On Coping, If That’s the Word
If you are looking for tidy advice, I don’t have it. I have observations. And a few rituals that kept me tethered when I might have drifted.
Let yourself be a mess. Crying in the car. Yelling into a pillow. Writing a letter and burning it. You don’t have to be elegant in grief. There’s no prize for keeping it together.
Talk to someone, or don’t. I had a therapist I adored. I also had a neighbour who once handed me a bottle of wine and said nothing at all, which was oddly perfect.
Build a tiny altar. Not a literal one unless that’s your style. But do something to remember. A song you play once a week. A recipe you recreate. A notebook you keep. Marking memory is how we keep love active.
Forgive yourself for laughing. The first time I belly-laughed after a major loss, I felt like I’d cheated. As if joy was some betrayal. But the truth is, laughter and grief are not enemies. They live in the same house.
Don’t expect closure. Closure is for real estate deals and Excel spreadsheets. Grief is a story you continue living, not a chapter you finish.
What Grief Leaves Behind
Here’s the strange part no one told me: grief, while brutal, makes you better. Not right away. And not in any way that feels noble. But over time, it burns off the inessential. It sharpens your understanding of people. It teaches you what to say—and more importantly, what not to say—when someone else is in pain. You become a person who gets it, and that’s not nothing.
It also slows you down. I no longer rush through phone calls. I don’t cancel dinner with friends just because I’m tired. I say I love you. I write thank you notes. I try to show up. Not because I’m virtuous, but because I know what it feels like to wish you had one more day.
Grief, in the end, isn’t about what you lost. It’s about what you choose to carry forward. The love. The lessons. The clarity. The kindness. If you're grieving, please know this: it won't always feel this sharp. You’ll still miss them. But over time, that ache becomes part of the rhythm of your life. A low note. A minor key. Something beautiful in its own right.
A Few Good Companions
If you’re in the thick of it, here are a few books that offered me something more useful than advice: understanding.
The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller – A poetic meditation on grief as a communal and spiritual act. Like sitting by the fire with someone older and wiser.
It’s OK That You’re Not OK by Megan Devine – A blunt, brilliant dismantling of our cultural impatience with grief. Required reading for anyone who’s tired of being told to “move on.”
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion – The gold standard. Devastating, spare, and scarily precise. Didion gives you permission to lose your mind and keep writing the grocery list.
Grief, I’ve found, doesn’t want to be fixed. It wants to be seen. And if you can do that—just that—you’re already healing.