Making Room for Your Grief

Why grieving is something we keep practicing.

Grief shows up and changes everything.

I thought I could get through it.
Grief doesn’t work that way.

Grief shows up and changes everything.

When my husband Gary died, I thought grief was something I would eventually get through. I told myself that if I talked it out, if I kept busy, if I worked hard, if I journaled, if I just held myself together really well for long enough, then it would begin to fade.

Grief does not work that way. It took me a long time to realize that.

What changed for me was learning that I needed to make room for grief. Room in my life, in my head, and in my heart.

That is something I still practice today, four and a half years after Gary’s last breath.

I practice it because grief is part of my life now. It is in my structure. It is woven into my tapestry. It is part of my DNA. And when I make room for it, I can carry it with less pain.

And maybe that is what many of us are learning to do.

Letting Grief Sit Beside You

For a long time, I was afraid that if I let myself feel grief, if I allowed myself to really cry, the grief would swallow me whole.

So I tried to keep it at bay.

I kept myself busy. I tried to analyze my grief, to give it a name, to understand it from the inside. I distracted myself with new journals, new things to learn, new books to read, new podcasts to listen to.

I tried to stay one step ahead of the pain.

When I pushed grief away, I found that it still waited for me. It was right there. Grief stays close. It is patient. It waits until I am ready to feel it.

Making room is a quiet kind of welcome. It is looking grief in the face and saying, “I see you, and I know you are here.”

Today it looked like deciding this is a day I will let myself cry. It looked like thinking about Gary working in the yard, and feeling the lump rise in my throat.

It is letting grief sit beside us and rest there, while we save our energy for living.

What Making Room Can Look Like

Making room is usually quiet work. It settles into the small moments of a day.

It might look like letting the tears come when you need them to.

It might look like saying your person’s name out loud on an ordinary Tuesday.

It might look like crying in the car and then walking into the grocery store anyway.

It might look like looking at photographs and smiling as hard as you can while the tears flow.

It might even look like setting grief down for an afternoon because you are tired and you need to rest.

Every one of these moments is part of carrying love and grief together. Each one keeps your person close while you keep living.

Why It Feels So Hard

Grief comes with no instructions. We are handed one of the hardest experiences a person can face and left to figure it out on our own.

It feels awkward and messy, and it makes no sense to us. And the awkwardness makes sense, because we do not have models for grief in our society. We were never shown how this is done.

If some days you feel strong and other days you feel completely undone, that makes sense too.

Grief asks us to keep learning. To keep adjusting. To keep finding ways to carry what cannot be fixed. It asks us to accept what we perceive as unacceptable.

Most of us learn that one moment at a time.

The Exhaustion Is Real

Grief is heavy work. Much of that work happens where no one else can see it.

You are carrying memories.

You are carrying love.

You are carrying all the changes that came after your person took their last breath.

All of that carrying takes energy.

So if you are tired, that makes sense. You are doing the work of grieving, and that work is real.

Rest is part of that work too.

A Gentle Reminder

Your grief and your life can exist together. Love is wide enough to hold both. You can honor your person and keep living in the same breath.

Maybe today, making room looks like letting yourself cry.

Maybe it looks like taking a walk.

Maybe it looks like getting through the next hour.

Whatever it looks like for you, I hope you remember this.

You do not have to have it all figured out today. You are carrying something very heavy. Give yourself grace.

And you do not have to carry it alone.

If you’d like a quiet place to talk, my free Holding the Ember conversation is always here. You can come share your story, be heard, and take one small step forward when you are ready.

Hugs 💜💚

Gladys