Five short things about grief

On May 22nd, 2024, I lost my mother. Came out of nowhere. A few days later, I wrote down some notes to self about it, to help me make sense of things. This is a slightly expanded articulation of those notes. I hope they can help you too.

1.

Grief is like creativity. It will show up out of nowhere. You can prepare for it, but you can't plan for it. Some days I wake up wanting to cry. Others, to punch something. What triggered it? Something I saw on television? A sentence I read? Over time, I learned the answer is "does it really matter?". What matters is it's happening. Notice it. Accept it. Then slooooowly start managing it.

2.

Normalise big feeling days. Sounds childish, but sometimes our inner world truly gets too heavy to explain. I've had to take short breaks to cry in an office bathroom. Not because I was feeling particularly desperate. I just... needed it. My body was begging for it. And then, having done so, the pressure slowly returns to a normal level. There's immense wisdom in honouring our body even when our minds can't completely explain what is going on.

3.

Everyone's grief is different. Trust your own process. Let others trust theirs. There were never any rules. In the early months after my mum passed, my dad over-compensated by socialising and never being in the house. This is normal, because that is where he found her. I, instead, threw myself into work, exercise, writing, and a short burst of therapy. My grandmother has been crying pretty much every day ever since. Which one of us is doing it right? All of us.

4.

Sometimes people don't need consoling words. They just need an attentive ear. One of the fantastic contributions that Brené Brown offered us is the difference between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy is when you're trying to help by offering a silver lining ("at least you still have your dad, she was a loving mother, your daughter got to meet her" etc). Empathy is when you simply acknowledge the immense pain someone is in, and help them feel seen ("that sounds so difficult, thank you for telling me, can you tell me more"). You'd be surprised how often people just want to feel seen, instead of being solved straight away.

5.

Grief is a perfect example of the difference between time management and energy management. Time management is when you know you need 30 minutes to do something. Energy management is when you know 30 minutes can feel like 30 hours or 30 seconds, depending on the time of day, day of week or indeed how you woke up that day. Or all of them combined. It takes courage to honour this in yourself. It takes even more courage to honour it in others.