Let Grief Be Weird

Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash

Grief isn’t just for the dead. People can grieve just about anything. I am glad I left an abusive marriage and I grieve the life I thought I had. I am estranged from my parents and I grieve the childhood I deserved. I grieve for the harm I’ve done my body on a quest to be thin and beautiful. I grieve for the cats I left behind when I left my husband. I grieve for relationships I thought would last a lifetime.

And yes, I grieve for my dead.

I lost my stepfather in March 2018 but could not grieve him for months, because he died the week I left my husband, and my heart and mind could not bear to stop and rest for tears because I didn’t know that I’d be able to start again. It took me months to feel safe enough to be sad about losing him.

And once I did, the grief came in flutters and quick starts and sudden flows of tears I didn’t know were waiting.

Grief came in seeing work vans with ladders on top. For a long time, whenever I saw a work truck I would cry in my car. Because he once drove that kind of van, and now he didn’t.

Grief came when I checked my old voicemails and saw one from my mom, which I listened to only to hear his voice coming out telling me to answer my phone.

Grief came when an ex-partner told me offhandedly that a buddy from work had to get a new furnace. I found out…