16/04/2026
Grief misconceptions 🕊️
Grief has an end point ~ no. Quite simply, it’s forever. It shows up in different ways on different days, but it’s forever.
After the funeral people are over it ~ absolutely not. After this point, when we’re settling into an existence without their physical presence, that’s when it really shows up.
Talking about it after a while means you are ‘stuck’ or ‘wallowing’ ~ absolutely not. It’s important to talk about our loved ones for the rest of our lives! That’s how we continue our bonds. That’s how we keep them with us. Speak their name, tell others who they were and that they were here.
Grief is the same for everyone ~ again, no. Your relationship was unique - so too is your grief. Nobody can tell you how to do it.
Grief has 5 stages ~ the stages people think of are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Grief is not a linear process and does not follow stages in any order! You may bounce around them, back and forth, one stage on one day, completely different stage on another. It’s all normal. There are many grief theories.
It’s best not to mention it as it might upset the person who is grieving ~ people avoid asking for fear of upsetting or somehow re-opening an old wound. Let me tell you, that wound never closed! Ask ‘how is your grief?’ Or ‘what were they like?’ ‘Tell me about them’. We want to talk about our loved ones. It really helps.
This was inspired by my walk around the park yesterday. As I walked, I reflected on this time last year when my grief was so dark and acute and I walked around and around this park most days. AirPods were in, sunglasses were always on because I invariably cried.
I was walking away from my grief, I was walking toward it, trying to outrun it, trying to embrace it as a way to keep them close. it was the time I had set aside for that part of me, that part of my life. The revisiting of it is bittersweet. As it brings me closer it highlights the distance in time.
Talk about your grief. People want to hear it.
One thing that most people do agree on, though, is that when all’s said and done, grief is just love. Love with nowhere to go 🕊️
