I think one of the hardest things about grief is how uncomfortable some of your own thoughts can make you.
You can love the people in your life and still have a hard time being around them because their lives kept going. They still have the person you lost. They get to make plans without thinking about death. They complain about things you would gladly trade problems with them for, and you sit there trying not to think, You have no idea how lucky you are.
And then you feel guilty for thinking it.
Grief can do that.
It can make you jealous of people you love. Angry at people who did absolutely nothing wrong. Irritated by conversations you used to enjoy. Less patient. Less interested in things that once seemed important.
There may even be times when you’re angry with the person who died.
That’s a hard one to admit.
Because how can you be angry with someone you would give anything to have back?
But sometimes you are.
They aren’t here dealing with any of this. You are.
You’re the one who had to wake up the next morning. You’re the one who had to make the decisions, answer the questions, deal with their things and eventually figure out what your life is supposed to look like now.
And maybe you resent that sometimes.
That doesn’t mean you love them any less.
It means grief isn’t made up only of the feelings we’re comfortable admitting.
There can be resentment in it. Jealousy. Relief. Anger. Fear. Even moments when you’re completely exhausted from thinking about the person you miss.
I don’t think we talk about that last one enough.
You can miss someone desperately and still want a break from missing them.
You can want one day where everything isn’t connected back to what happened. Where you don’t analyze whether you’re grieving too much or too little. Where you don’t wonder what they would think about what you’re doing now.
And then maybe you get that day.
You laugh. You make plans. You realize you’ve gone several hours without thinking about your loss.
And instead of simply enjoying it, you might feel guilty.
Because grief has this strange way of making you question yourself when you’re hurting and question yourself when you’re not.
Maybe that’s one of the hardest things to understand about grief.
So many of the feelings seem to contradict each other.
You can want company and want to be left alone. You can want to talk about them and not want to explain yourself anymore. You can be grateful for what you had and angry that you didn’t get more. You can laugh and still be grieving. You can have a good day and still miss them terribly.
None of those feelings cancel out the others.
And none of them change how much you love the person who died.
Sometimes grief is simply a lot of conflicting feelings existing in the same person at the same time.
And maybe we need to be more honest about that part of it too.
If these words connected with you, you’ll find many more like them in What Remains. It’s a collection of the writings I’ve shared over the years, bringing together reflections on grief, love, loss, and the connections that continue long after someone is gone.
I hope it brings you comfort, understanding, and the reminder that you’re not alone.
If you’d like to read more, you can find the book here
Available now on Amazon