Lessons from Grief - An Incomplete List
I think back on how fundamentally my personhood feels changed since I was first forced to grieve, now over a decade ago. A couple weeks into navigating grief, I remember coming across a quote by Jamie Anderson: “Grief, I’ve learned, it really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. The more you loved someone, the more you grieve. Grief is just love with no place to go.” When I first read it, it hit me like a rock, even though it is so seemingly simple at its core. I think of the many lessons this misplaced love has taught me— and continues to teach me— as time inevitably passes.
Grief demands to be felt— not solved.
Grief takes its own sweet time. It can be heavy, slow, and exhausting. Loss changes you. Let it.
Grief can co-exist with happiness, and realizing that will fill you up with guilt.
Grief follows no timetable or schedule, not any sort of a neat, linear, clear progression. It’s confusing and it’s messy.
Grief doesn’t ask for permission— it will sometimes show up when you least expect it, and knock the wind out of you.
Memories hold such incredible power.
And yet, grief isn’t only about the memories that were— but also the ones that could’ve been but never will be.
Death doesn’t stop life. The world doesn’t stop even when your world does.
Grief is actually just a reminder— a painful yet powerful one— that we were lucky enough to love and be loved.
You’ll never get over it. But you will.
Whether or not you’ve met grief yet, this is a process that is yours, and yours alone. How the grief fits into your life will teach you so many things about connection and love through a lens unimagined before. And even on the days it feels like an endless pit of sorrow, may you remember that happiness and peace will re-enter your life. It might just look different.
