Dear Grief

Finding strength, love, and meaning in grief

Before and After

No one teaches you how to survive with grief, you just survive.

There is the life before grief entered my world, where the days were just days, casually centred around work and family. Every day taken for granted, as if tomorrow’s health and happiness were guaranteed.

Then there is life after grief entered my world.

The days you fight to survive. The realisation that health and happiness are incredibly precious. The harshness of knowing that all of this could be gone in the blink of an eye. Whether this wisdom is a blessing or a constant anguish, I’m not sure.

The Everyday Weight of Grief

Life with grief requires a whole new level of energy just to get up in the morning. To get dressed. To make that first cup of coffee (and only take one cup out of the cupboard instead of two, as you’ve done for years.)

The simple task of getting up and living is no longer simple.

This is how I have survived alongside my grief for the past nine months. I have chosen to walk this journey with it.

There is a part of me that tries to fight it, but that is a battle I’ll never win. Grief needs to be felt. It can’t be outrun and it can’t be ignored.

Learning to Live With What Won’t Leave

I’m forever hopeful that there is a way to live with grief. If I can’t find a way, then the future looks bleak, and it’s in those moments that anxiety takes over.

The one person who would have been able to quieten this anxiety-filled head is the one person I am grieving.

So I must work my way messily and awkwardly through it.

What People See, and What They Don’t

The trouble is that expressing my grief out loud to those around me is hard. Instead, they see a tough exterior and assume that I am healed, that my grieving is done.

Inside, there is an entirely different scenario unfolding.

These emotions only seem to come out when I feel safe — and safe, it turns out, is when I am on my own, or with a very few select people.

Grief is exhausting.

Being exhausted is exhausting.

Yet we still say we are “fine” when we are far from it.

To grieve, we must grieve.

Love and Strength

They say that without the love we had, we would not grieve the way that we do.

Sitting on the hospital bed, one of the last conversations I had with my partner was me telling him that I wasn’t strong enough to live in a world without him.

He told me I would find my strength, and that he had seen it in me before.

This was the final gift he gave me.

He believed I would find my strength.

Now I have to believe that he was right.

Carrying Grief Into the World

Last week, I found the strength to travel to Vienna and visit the Christmas markets.

Anxiety and grief came too. But they were joined by enjoyment and laughter. The two don’t cancel each other out, they simply sit on opposite sides of the seesaw.

When you travel as a couple, there are two of you to check passports, confirm bookings, work out public transport, and make decisions.

When you travel alone, there is no one to share the load.

I wasn’t entirely alone — my adult children came with me — but travelling with children, no matter their age, is different from travelling with your partner. Your spouse. Your person.

Stolen moments in coffee shops. Hands held as you wander market stalls choosing Christmas decorations. Selfies in front of Christmas trees.

The experience is still beautiful.

But it is different.

And even when surrounded by family, you can still feel very much alone in the world.

Keeping Him With Me

My hope is that through me, he still gets to see the world I see — even though he isn’t here. That thought keeps me going. It brings me comfort.

On every trip I’ve taken since he passed, I’ve bought a postcard.

I write to him and tell him about the journey. Over time, I hope to send him many postcards. I hope they reach him in some way or another.

Writing as Connection

Writing has become a grounding way for me to articulate my grief.

Whether I’m writing his memoirs, journalling, or sending postcards from my travels, writing gives me a sense of connection to him in ways I can’t fully describe.

This week, I chose to write a letter. Not to him, but to the pain that followed.

Dear Grief,

The problem I have with you is that you arrived uninvited into my life, and now I cannot ask you to leave.

To ask you to leave would mean the person I am grieving would be forgotten, and I never want that. I am desperately trying to hold onto every memory I have of him.

But grief, you are a double-edged sword.

You bring so much pain that sometimes I wish it were me who was gone instead of him. And yet, you also fill my heart with love. Because loving and being loved the way I was is something I feel deeply fortunate for.

You remind me that life is a gift. You make a strong case for saying “yes” to things I once would have said “no” to. You show me what truly matters, and what does not.

That doesn’t mean I prefer my life with you in it. I don’t.

But since you are here to stay, I know I must learn how to live with you. I must accept you. I must even learn to thank you for the lessons you bring.

We don’t need to be friends.

But wherever I go, I know you will come too.

I hope you enjoy the ride.

Caroline

Listening Instead of Fixing

As I continue learning how to live alongside my grief, I’ve realised it isn’t something to fix or finish.

It’s something to listen to.

Some days it whispers.

Other days it roars.

But it always reminds me that love still lives here.

Writing Reflection

If you’re walking with your own grief, I invite you to pause and write to it.

Not to the person you’ve lost, but to your grief itself.

Ask it what it’s trying to teach you.

Tell it what you wish it would allow you to feel more of.

You don’t need to share it with anyone.

Just write, and let the words hold you for a while.

Grieving, one page at a time. One week at a time.