This is a text about grief.
About grief and healing – as it actually looks in real life.
Not the dramatic kind of grief, but the one that is simply there every day.
The one that walks beside you like an unwanted companion.
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I wrote it without knowing where it would go.
Maybe that is exactly why it became true.
Yes, here I am again, sitting and waiting for inspiration.
Trying to get something done, while at the same time knowing that this is not how I write.
Because I write when the words pop up without me having to strain for them.
Inspiration is not the right word, because you can wait for that for hours, days, and years.
What matters is doing.
I had planned to write about grief.
About grief and healing – not as concepts, but as lived experience.
Grief that hurts and is felt and makes your thoughts loop and time become intensely boring and at the same time still, yet moving.
Not moving in a good way, just ongoing.
An old soldier’s cottage in winter stillness.
Walls that have carried life, work, losses, and time.
And that still stand.
Suddenly one day you realize that hours have passed.
Days. Yes, maybe even a year.
You realize that the days have flowed on and you have done things, even though grief has been a companion you did not want beside you for almost a year.
Maybe even two years.
It doesn’t have to take that long, but it can.
And that grief, it can move in phases.
Some moments it is unbearable and hurts.
Tears that run.
That dull feeling in the body that shows itself in the breath, in the emotions, and in the present moment.
Then, when things no longer make sense in any way.
Then, when what is fun is no longer fun, and you do things because you have somehow learned that you are supposed to do fun things even when you are sad.
Even when you don’t have the energy and can’t find any meaning in what you are doing.
But one day, when you have had that constant grief companion at your side, you realize that hours, days, and even a year have actually passed.
You have survived.
Survived grief and received healing.
And even if you don’t come out completely free from pain, you can see that time has healed that open wound.
If nothing else, the wound has at least stopped bleeding.
And even if the scab feels tight, you dare to feel more feelings than just the sorrowful ones.
One day, you even laugh a warm, wonderful laugh that you feel in your body.
Then you have not only survived.
You have made it through the grief.
Maybe it is a memory of a period when you didn’t believe you would ever be able to laugh again.
You may not feel whole, but you are wholer.
Not as whole as you were before, but whole in a completely different way.
You have learned that, despite everything, you managed to get through.
You dared to feel, and you endured.
You were still there.
You managed all the breaths.
You are still alive.
With an experience that shows you:
you endured.
Between the Lines – My Voice
This is not a text about becoming free from grief.
It is a text about learning to live beside it.
About continuing to set the dinner table, go to the store, politely laugh at a joke –
while the heart is still carrying something heavy.
This is also a text about dignity.
About not forcing healing.
About letting time do its quiet work.
This is also a text about grief and healing.
About not forcing what must be allowed to take its time.
AHA – Between the Lines
Grief does not disappear.
It changes form.
And one day you don’t notice that it has become lighter.
You only notice that you have become larger.
Reflection
I believe we often underestimate what we are actually capable of.
Not because we are strong in some grand way,
but because we keep breathing, day after day,
even when life hurts.
Maybe that is what it means to be human.
Not to become whole again –
but to become wholer.
On Grief Work – A Few Quiet Words About Grief and Healing in Everyday Life
Grief work is part of grief and healing.
It is not about getting over something, but about letting what has happened have a place in life.
Sometimes it means tears.
Sometimes exhaustion.
Sometimes anger.
Sometimes nothing at all.
Grief work is rarely dramatic.
It is ordinary.
It happens at the sink, in the shower, on walks, in silence.
And maybe that is exactly why it is so hard to see when healing is actually taking place.
Read More on the Same Theme
When It Becomes Quiet – About Relationships That Drift Apart
Here and Now – But Still Moving Forward
Texts That Hold in the Body – Then and Now (If you click on the individual posts, there is a link to the English text. 🌿)
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“Yesterday has already come to rest in history.
Tomorrow is waiting further ahead.
But right now – this is where life is happening.”
— Carina Ikonen Nilsson
Afterword
Maybe you are reading this in the middle of your own grief.
Maybe long after.
Wherever you are:
You are not weak because it hurts.
You are human.
And if no one has said this to you today:
You endured.
And that is enough.
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