This week has been a hard one. I saw this picture of the evolution of grief. It’s just meme psychology, of course, oversimplifying something really complicated. But the idea I liked was this: grief never really goes away, but we build our lives around it and learn to live with it. In this book on the shelf idea, sometimes you need to rearrange your shelves and you become aware of the book again, or the book falls down and you are forced to pick it back up, or you might choose to leaf through for some reason – looking for a memory that has become blurry. 

This week, there were a number of things that came up that knocked the book over, forcing me to reshelve it. 

I was part of a conversation about someone else having a hard time grieving their loved one. Then I received some scary health news about someone I care about. That same night, I was told about a young person I know who is an intern at a new (health care industry) job, and observed death for the first time. 

It was like each story brought me back to my dad’s hospital room, back to those weeks that felt impossible and out of control, and so awful and so quiet. 

And then, my family got together and we talked about our summer vacation. 

Vacation is of course not the same. But it was one of the firsts I was told about when my dad passed away. This will be the first time our family goes to the beach without him. I wasn’t sure what part of that hit me hardest. That he won’t be there to make jokes with, that he won’t see the progress my daughter has made with her swimming, or that he won’t be there, doing all of the vacation things he looked forward to. Or maybe it’s that I recognize that the trips had gotten harder for him the past few years, and that his slow gait, waning appetite, and insomnia were silent signs that he was sick, but because he chose to ignore them, we all did, too. 

It’s not just one of these of course. It’s all of them. And so I found myself flipping through that big book of grief, and reading a new chapter. One that I hadn’t read yet. Then I put it back, and I moved on. 

I am still having a busy mom week. I am still collecting an incredible number of bags of used and loved things for charity. I am still spending time with my friends, and caring for my family, and cooking, and laughing, and gardening. 

But there was a moment when the week stopped. I closed the door to my car to drive to my next thing, and before I could move, before I could go from one thought to the next, I cried by myself, until I was done and I didn’t need to anymore. I could view that as hiding my emotions from others, or protecting them from my feelings, but I think in the context of my life, my car is the place I have always reserved to take my time to feel freely. 

Part of that is because I have learned as a woman who cries when she is angry or upset, that crying in front of people often makes them upset or uncomfortable. They sometimes act in ways that I am not interested in dealing with when I need to cry, or they present another emotional hurdle that I have to jump over when I really just want to take care of myself. I know the people who will let me cry in front of them in peace, and I appreciate them! 

So, my parting thoughts to you are these: grief can be sneaky in its silence, but it demands its time to be felt. Whether it stems from deep love, regret, or frustration doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t have to have a silver lining. All it is asking for is my attention. I see it now as a signal that my body and my mind needs a time out. There is no amount of busyness that can stop it in its tracks. 

Thinking about it as “a great big book on my shelf” does actually help. It’s not something I can just absorb. If it’s a book, I have to take time to sit and read it if I want to understand and process it. Otherwise, it just takes up space (like all of those other books I buy and don’t read) and it never stops reminding me that it is there. And I can’t read it all at once. It’s dense so I need to take my time. 

This week has made me realize that I am not in any way done with my grief, and that it will come back and visit again and again. Now I am a little more aware of what I can expect, and also (of course) prepared for something totally unexpected.