The Silver Lining of Grief
Maybe the silver lining is not moving on, but learning to carry both the love and the loss with us.
For five minutes, I can pretend.
Pretend she is at home…
Sitting on her couch…
Watching her favourite show…
Pretend she is still here, that nothing has changed.
In my mind, my Grandmother is safe, at home, going about her day in her favourite place. Her home.
Then, I remember…
And the weight crashes down again.
The sharp, shooting pain in my heart. The lump in my throat that never really leaves.
Grief is strange like that. It gives you moments of ease before pulling you back under.
A year ago, I learned grief… though a different type of grief.
And in this past year, I learned that grief never really disappears.
I learned to live with it. To make it a quieter part of me.
I also learned that when you lose someone you love with your whole heart and soul… no matter how you lose them… that pain never truly goes away.
The pain stayed. What changed was…
I managed to stop letting it define me.
And now, I find myself in a different kind of grief, recognising the same patterns but on a deeper, immeasurable scale.
The ending of a life. The loss of one of the people I loved most in this world.
Losing my Grandmother one week ago.
Getting that one dreaded phone call.
Unexpected. Sudden.
While grief is grief, this one has opened a new layer of it. A different depth of pain.
But if I know one thing, it’s that time stretches those five minutes…
One day, it will be an hour. Then two. Then, maybe almost a day where I’ll feel okay.
The loss sadly never goes away, it seems.
It simply becomes part of us… glued into our hearts, our memories, the way we love, and the person we become after it.
We have the power to make it a beautiful part of us.
Though it takes strength to get there.
It’s only been a week.
And maybe, in losing her, I am also reconnecting with myself in a deeper way.
Because I think about her. I talk to her. I feel her love and protection around me.
I wake up and say good morning to her now. I say good night, too… every morning and night since losing her.
She is still here.
Just in a different way.
She always wished for the best of everything for the people she loved.
Maybe now she is guiding me toward the love and life she always wanted for me.
Maybe she is more with me now than she ever was before.
Because now, I can carry her everywhere.
I can talk to her whenever I want.
Maybe that is the silver lining…
