Grief Doesn’t Own A Calendar

Today is the anniversary of my Aunt Susie’s death, and if you have followed any of my writing for very long, you probably already know that saying she was my aunt doesn’t really explain who she was to me. Susie was my person. She was one of those rare people who becomes so woven into your life that it is difficult to explain the relationship without telling a hundred stories, sharing a thousand memories, and somehow trying to describe all the little things that made someone feel like home. There are people we love, and then there are people whose presence becomes part of the way we understand ourselves and the world around us. Susie was that for me, and losing her changed something in me that time has softened in some ways but has never erased.

Every year this date comes, and every year I am reminded of something I already know both personally and professionally: grief does not follow the rules we desperately want it to follow. It doesn’t stay neatly attached to the person we are grieving, and it certainly doesn’t care how many years have passed. Today is about Susie, but somehow opening the door to missing her also opened the door to missing my dad. It brought other losses with it, other hurts, other moments and people and pieces of my life that I thought were safely tucked away enough for me to keep moving. Apparently grief decided they could all come along today, and honestly, that makes sense because grief has always had a way of finding grief.

I think that is one of the realities we don’t talk about enough. One loss touches another, and suddenly you aren’t only grieving the person whose anniversary is written on the calendar. You’re grieving everyone you’ve loved and lost, the versions of yourself that existed when those people were still here, the conversations you can’t have anymore, the things you wish you could tell them now, and the questions you never thought to ask because you couldn’t imagine there would come a time when asking wouldn’t be possible. Sometimes I think we even grieve the person we were before we understood what it meant to lose someone we couldn’t imagine living without.

The strange part is that life doesn’t stop while all of that is happening. I still have sessions today. People are going to sit across from me and trust me with pieces of their lives, and I am going to listen, be present, and do work that matters deeply to me. At the same time, between those sessions, I am intentionally making room for myself too. I’m going to read my Bible, work on my paint-by-number, get my nails done, journal, and spend time with Darla. None of those things are particularly profound, and maybe that’s part of the point. I’m not trying to create some perfect grief ritual or force myself into feeling better by the end of the day. I’m simply trying to surround myself with things that feel safe, grounding, familiar, and gentle while allowing whatever needs to come up today to come up.

As a therapist, I spend a lot of time talking with people about the idea that emotions do not have to become emergencies. Sadness doesn’t always need to be fixed, pain doesn’t automatically mean something has gone wrong, and healing doesn’t mean we eventually reach some magical point where the things that hurt us no longer hurt. Sometimes the healthiest thing we can do is stop fighting what is already there and allow ourselves to experience it. Today I get to practice what I ask other people to practice all the time, because I don’t actually need to make myself feel better today. I need to let myself feel what is here without judging it, rushing it, analyzing it to death, or deciding that because I have done a tremendous amount of healing I shouldn’t still hurt this much.

That last part matters to me because I think we sometimes misunderstand healing, especially when it comes to grief. We talk about healing as though the goal is to eventually become unaffected by what happened, but I don’t think that’s how this works. I can have built a beautiful, meaningful life and still desperately wish my dad were here to see it. I can be grateful for the people who are in my life now and still ache for Susie. I can laugh today, enjoy getting my nails done, get completely absorbed in painting some ridiculously tiny numbered section, smile at Darla doing something ridiculous, have a meaningful session with a client, and then suddenly feel tears in my eyes because something reminded me of someone I love who isn’t here anymore. Joy doesn’t disrespect grief, and grief doesn’t erase joy. Somehow, eventually, we learn how to hold both.

For people who haven’t experienced a significant loss yet, this may be one of the hardest parts to understand. Grief isn’t simply being sad because someone died. At first it can consume everything, but eventually life starts growing around it. You learn how to carry groceries and grief at the same time. You answer emails, sit in traffic, go to work, celebrate birthdays, take vacations, build careers, meet new people, fall in love with new things, and create entire chapters of your life that the person you lost never got to see. From the outside, you may look completely fine because, in many ways, you actually are fine. You aren’t secretly miserable every moment of every day. You are living. You are laughing. You are loving. You are growing. And you can be genuinely happy while still missing someone with an ache that catches you completely off guard.

Sometimes grief is obvious. It is crying until your chest hurts or lying awake thinking about everything you would give for five more minutes. But sometimes grief is reaching for your phone because for half a second you forgot you can’t call them anymore. It’s hearing something funny and immediately thinking about how much they would have loved it. It’s trying desperately to remember exactly what their voice sounded like and being terrified that one day you won’t be able to. It’s laughing so hard at a memory that you cry, or walking through an ordinary Tuesday with absolutely no outward indication that part of your heart is somewhere else entirely.

Maybe that is why grief has made me think so much about how little we actually know about what another person is carrying. We don’t know what date someone woke up to this morning. We don’t know which song came on during their drive to work, whose birthday appeared on their calendar, which empty chair they still notice, or whose name they almost typed into a text message. We see people functioning and assume they are okay, forgetting that human beings are remarkably capable of carrying joy, pain, responsibility, love, loss, and a grocery list all at the exact same time.

I have spent a lot of my life believing strength meant continuing no matter what. Keep moving, keep working, keep helping, keep functioning, keep finding the next thing that needs to be done. I still believe deeply in resilience, probably more than ever, but my definition of it has changed. Resilience isn’t pretending something doesn’t hurt, and strength isn’t proving that I can outrun my own humanity. Sometimes resilience is making room for the hurt while continuing to live beside it. Sometimes strength is recognizing that today is going to be tender and deciding I don’t need to fight that.

So that is what I am doing today. I’m making room for Susie, for my dad, and apparently for whatever other grief decides it would like to drag in with it. I’m also making room for my clients, my faith, painting, pretty nails, journaling, Darla, laughter, memories, tears, and whatever else this day ends up holding. I’m not going to grade myself on how well I grieve or use today as evidence of how healed I am. I’m just going to let myself be a human being who loved people deeply and still misses them.

And if today happens to be one of those days for you too—an anniversary, a birthday, a memory, or simply a random day when grief showed up without being invited—I hope you give yourself permission to do the same. You don’t have to turn your grief into a lesson, find the silver lining, explain why you’re still sad, or prove how far you’ve come. Read. Pray. Paint. Walk. Cry. Laugh. Go to work if you want to. Cancel something if you need to. Tell the story you’ve already told a hundred times because sometimes telling it again is how we keep a piece of someone with us.

And if you love someone who is grieving, you don’t need the perfect words. You don’t need to fix something that cannot be fixed, and you don’t need to rush them toward being okay because their sadness makes you uncomfortable. Say the person’s name. Ask about them. Listen to the story again. Remember that the passing of time does not make a person less important, and understand that sometimes the greatest gift you can give another human being is simply being willing to sit beside something that hurts without trying to make it disappear.

Today hurts because Susie mattered. My dad mattered. The other people, experiences, and pieces of my life that grief may decide to bring forward today mattered too. Their absence has weight because their presence had weight first, and I don’t think I want to live a life where loving deeply doesn’t leave some kind of mark.

So today, I’m going to let it hurt when it hurts. I’m going to enjoy the moments that feel good without feeling guilty for them. I’m going to take care of myself between taking care of the people who trust me to care for them, and I’m going to remember that grief and living are not opposites.

Sometimes they are simply two things we learn to carry together.