If you have lost someone you love, you have probably been told you will “get over it” or “move on”. The truth is gentler and harder: grief is not a line you cross. It is a landscape you keep returning to, each time with different weather.
You are not doing it wrong
Grief has no schedule. One day you feel almost like yourself; the next you are undone by a song, a smell, a place. That is not regression — that is grief being present and alive.
- Anniversaries and dates are often harder, not easier.
- Anger, guilt and numbness are all normal guests.
- You can laugh genuinely and still be grieving. The two are not opposites.
Ways to carry it
Find a way to include the person you lost in your days: a song, a photo, a tradition. Talking about them — even the painful parts — keeps your relationship with them alive in a healthy way.
Grieving well is not about forgetting. It is about letting the love and the loss exist at the same time.
When grief needs company
If grief has flattened your days, or you have lost interest in things you once loved, it may have become depression alongside grief. That is common — and it is treatable. Grief counselling creates a safe space to bring the whole of it.