Madeline

Grief is everything and nothing. Grief is a constant cycle of mourning and guilt. Grief lingers, always behind you like a shadow, and can sense when you’re doing better. That’s when grief comes back out.

Grief doesn’t allow you to forget it exists. Grief demands to be felt.

Grief sits heavy on your chest, pressing into you and serving as a cruel reminder that it isn’t going anywhere. Grief gnaws at your brain with jagged teeth. It replays memory over memory, the good and the bad.

Grief reaches straight in and squeezes your heart so strongly sometimes you think it may give out. Grief presses firmly against your eyeballs, the pressure making tears stream in rivulets.

Grief slips under your skin and invades your veins. It makes your blood run cold, your bones ache. Grief wraps itself so tightly around your lungs that each breath is painful.

Grief isn’t loud. It’s quiet. Grief waits silently, lurking. Then it hits you seemingly out of nowhere. Grief takes mundane, average moments and destroys them.

Grief cancels plans you know at one point you were excited for. Grief is why you cry as soon as you open your eyes. Grief hides in the bed, tucked under layers of blankets even though it’s the middle of summer. Grief doesn’t turn on the lights because the brightness is too much.

Grief isn’t always crying and screaming. Sometimes grief is staring at the ceiling for hours and ignoring everyone around you. Grief looks like eating because you know your body needs it, not because you’re actually hungry. Grief looks like not showering for a week because you don’t have the energy or motivation to take care of yourself.

Grief sounds like telling everyone you’re fine, you’re okay, you’re making it, when really each breath is a battle to get out and you don’t even remember what fine and okay look like anymore.

Grief will try to convince you you’re doing better, only to pull the rug out from under you. Grief makes you feel guilty for smiling or enjoying a day, because why should you get to enjoy any moment when they’re gone?

Grief has become a permanent fixture in my life. We haven’t learned how to coexist yet.

While it is painful, grief is also beautiful. Because it is a reminder of the person you love. And how lucky is it to have loved someone so much that you will endure missing them forever.

On the really hard days, I stop to remind myself that I wouldn’t give up the time I got to spend with Oliver just to escape missing him. The grief is real, because the love is real.