Sadly, the thing about grief is that is won’t simply go away if we suddenly change environment, our routines, give up control, or step back from all the things that remind us of the person we lost. No, grief follows us into that new apartment, and even that new country, and into the simpler life we hoped would be less painful.
Sometimes, the discomfort we try to get away from comes back, but this time, it’s mixed with regret over the things we gave up too soon, regret over the choices we made when we couldn’t think clearly because of the pain in our hearts.
This isn’t an encouragement to continue to suffer, to continue to be uncomfortable, or to continue to be miserable, and it’s certainly not an invitation to act on our emotions, to do anything with them, or to try to change them.
This ability to do nothing, to wait out the emotions, to let them come and go without immediately reacting to them, is one of the most difficult things grief asks of us, and one of the best protections we have against it.
Grief isn’t something you solve, it’s something you learn to live with until it eventually fades away.
2. Redefining independence after loss
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