What is grief?

When you haven't been through grief before, it's hard to know what it is. People kept telling me that grief is something you take with you forever, but what does this even mean? What is the difference between grief and grieving?

One perspective is that grief is a more intense emotional response to loss. Grief is the acute experience, the wave that comes out of nowhere and knocks you down, leaving you gasping for breath. Grieving is a more gradual process of adapting to loss, and moving forward in our lives without our loved one. Grieving is the slow drip of molasses, grief is the flood.

Moving through the grieving process is uncomfortable. It entails writhing against the walls of our chrysalis, squirming to emerge fresh and new, transformed into the butterfly. Inside of grief, it is dark and a struggle to believe in lighter and brighter days. There is no timeline for grief, and it's painful to live in the uncertainty. Each day is a new dawn; some days the light begins to filter through the thin paper skin of the chrysalis. A sliver of the world outside behind the veil. Other days it is dark, when our form is twisted inside with an opaque perspective, devoid of light or color.

Slowly, we emerged to be reborn. We not only grieve the loss of our loved one but also ourselves. The version who we will never be again. We carry battle Scars that never fully heal, but mark our treacherous journey. We change, our lives change. We cannot undo the past, only fight for the future. Holding onto the rungs of life.