I hesitated to write this. But lately, I’ve been reminded subtly and not so subtly about grief and loss, and especially my own grief journey. Sometimes, things happen that bring it all back to the surface.
Disclaimer: This isn’t my usual content. If you’re deep in grief, I’m holding space for you—but if this isn’t what you need today, feel free to skip it.
“We’re struggling here… I need you… I miss you… This is hard…”
That was the text from my best friend last Saturday at 1:37 a.m., telling me her father-in-law had died. By 10:30 a.m., I was at her house. By 12:30 p.m., her son and I were back from the stores, and I was cooking all the food. What can I say? I’m Italian, and when there aren’t words, I cook.
You drop every last ball when your friend sends a bat signal like that. It doesn’t matter that you have a thousand other things going on; there’s no place I’d rather be.
I hate this for her. Watching your husband completely fall apart when his father dies is one of the hardest things I have ever gone through. And it has brought up a lot of feelings from my father-in-law’s passing. What they don’t tell you about marriage is that your spouse’s parents become like your own. You’ll love them that way. You’ll grieve for them that way.
I wasn’t expecting to grieve my father-in-law the way I have. It’s the tiny moments that get you—the big events he’s missing—the knowing, deep in my gut, just how incredibly proud he would be of his son. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to pick up the phone in the last year alone to hear his booming voice. And it’s been over a decade since he passed.
Grief sucks, and it’s exhausting, and it’s heavy. And it isn’t linear. And somehow, in the hardest years, in the most challenging days of living, that’s when grief hits the hardest. When it sneaks up on you in ways you never saw coming.
I remember vividly, in the early days of Bob’s passing, standing in Macy’s holding a pile of black. Do I know what I picked out? No. When I got to the register, the young cashier (barely out of diapers) looked at me and said, “Wow, you really love black.” And that’s when I lost it. Standing there holding clothes, just openly grieving. This is not something you can escape, and it’s not something you will get over in a week, a month, a year, or a decade.
The truth is, we need more space for grief and more grace for each other. This isn’t something you can just move on from in a week, a month, a year, or even a decade. It stays with you. It changes you. And that’s okay.
If you’re in the midst of your own grief journey, I urge you to give yourself some grace. It’s okay to not be okay. Let people help you. Find that one person who can sit with you, whether it’s your best friend or someone unexpected, someone who won’t try to fix it but will just be there—in the silence, in the weight of it all.
With you,
Kimberly
