Grief Is Love Still Moving

*Wednesday will be two years since my Dad died.

And I couldn’t sleep last night.

I was lying there missing him…so I got up and started writing on the floor by the side of the bed.

I wasn’t trying to get rid of the grief. I wasn’t trying to turn it into some “teaching”.

I just missed knowing my Dad was still around. And it felt too painful to sit with that recognition, that remembering.

Some days, two years feels like a long time.

Life has kept moving on…there have been whole days when I haven’t thought consciously about Dad’s death.

And then a date gets close…and something in the body knows.

Before I even name it, I feel different…

More tired. More tender. A little distant from everyone.

Grief doesn’t always look like grief…

Sometimes it’s sadness.

Sometimes it’s exhaustion.

Sometimes I’m irritable and don’t know why.

Sometimes I don’t want to talk.

A memory comes, and I smile. Then the smile turns into an ache.

Grief doesn’t move in a straight line.

You can feel fine for weeks. Then I remember the way he cracked himself up…

“How was your retreat?

“Great, Dad.”

“Did they serve beans?”

“Yes, Dad.”…knowing what he’s going to say.

“Then I guess it didn’t stay silent for long!”

Or I walk into Mom’s house and, for half a second, expect him to be there.

And there it is again. Heartache. Fresh.

We talk about grief as though it’s something we move through and finish.

There are stages. There are lessons. We’ve all heard that, right?

Eventually, we’re supposed to reach the “other side.”

But that hasn’t been my experience.

I don’t think there’s an other side where the heart doesn’t quiver a bit.

There’s just this life that keeps going…a life changed by loving them, and changed again by losing them.

The Buddha was very direct about this.

There is birth. There is aging. There is illness. There is death. And there is the pain of being separated from the people we love.

That wasn’t pessimism. It was the truth.

Heartache doesn’t mean we failed to let go. It isn’t happening because we weren’t spiritual enough.

Heartache comes with loving people in a world where everything changes. All. The. Time.

That can sound cold when your heart feels achy, right?

Everything changes. Everyone dies.

Yes. Of course. We know…

And knowing that doesn’t stop us from missing someone’s presence.

Impermanence isn’t asking us to care less. It’s asking us to see what love has always asked of us.

We don’t get to hold onto anyone for good. Not in the way we want to.

Even while they’re alive, they’re changing. We’re changing. The relationship is changing.

The moment is passing while we’re right inside it. And usually we don’t notice.

Then someone we love dies…and impermanence is no longer an idea.

It’s the empty recliner chair.

It’s the phone number and voicemail still in your contacts.

It’s that last text message…

Grief puts us right up against something we spend a lot of time trying not to know...

We can’t control how long the people we love will be here.

We can care for them. We can show up. We can say what needs to be said. We can love them as well as we know how.

But we cannot make them stay.

And my heart doesn’t like that. Of course it doesn’t.

My heart says…

Oooo…not this person. Not Daddy.

Not yet.

Just one more conversation. One more hug. One more ordinary afternoon.

The mind may understand death, but the heart keeps reaching.

I don’t think practice is supposed to shut that down too quickly either.

Sometimes teachings about letting go are used in ways that don’t seem too kind. We start thinking grief means we’re clinging.

That acceptance means we should be done hurting.

That if we really understood impermanence, we wouldn’t miss the person so much.

I don’t believe that.

Grief is not a failure to understand impermanence. Grief is what impermanence can feel like when you’ve loved someone.

What makes it harder is the judgment we add…I shouldn’t still feel this. It’s been two years. Other people seem to have moved on. I need to be strong. I should just be grateful for the time we had.

Yes, I am grateful. And I’m heartbroken too.

Both can be true.

Practice doesn’t ask me to make grief different. It asks me to know what’s here, truthfully.

That’s where mindfulness helps.

Not because it makes grief go away. It doesn’t.

It helps me stay close enough to what I’m feeling that it doesn’t have to keep chasing after me.

And grief can hold all kinds of things at once.

We can miss someone and still remember what was difficult.

I’m not romanticizing who Dad was. We can feel love and anger. Gratitude and regret.

We can grieve what we had. We can also grieve what we never had and now never will.

Death ends a life. But it doesn’t necessarily resolve all our relationship stuff.

That can be part of the grief too.

The practice is not to clean any of this up. It’s to know what is here without abandoning ourselves.

This sadness is here. This anger is here. This longing is here.

Can I let this be here for one moment?

Not forever. Just now.

And one of the kindest things we can do in grief is stop asking the body to carry the whole loss at once.

The mind says…

They’re gone forever. I’ll never see them again. This will always hurt.

There may be truth in those thoughts. But the body can’t hold forever all at once. That’s been my experience.

Mindfulness brings us back to what is here now…

This breath.

This ache.

This hand on the heart.

This moment of remembering.

We meet grief a little at a time. We touch it.

Then we touch something steady…

The feet.

The breath.

A sound in the room.

The sounds and presence of another person sleeping in the room with you, loving you.

Then maybe we come back.

That isn’t avoidance. It’s honoring our unique nervous system. That’s wise.

There are times when turning toward grief is healing. There are times when we need a break.

We don’t have to stare at pain all day to prove we loved someone. Like we don’t have to stare at the sun to know it’s there.

We can watch something hilarious.

We can enjoy a yummy meal with a loved one watching interesting TV.

We can lighten our schedule for a few days.

Joy doesn’t mean we didn’t love them enough. That we’re “over it.” And pain doesn’t prove that we did.

Grief doesn’t have to become a measure of our devotion.

So I sit by my bed…breathing…

Whew…this hurts.

May I be gentle with myself today.

May I let grief move at its own pace.

May I remember that I don’t have to carry this alone.

All of us have lost someone. Or we will.

And many of us are carrying losses no one else can see…

A parent.

A partner.

A relationship that ended while both people were still alive.

A child.

A friend.

A version of our body.

A home.

A future we thought we would have.

Maybe grief is one way a relationship keeps going…

Not in the same form. I’m not pretending he’s still here.

But I can see the ways his life is still inside mine…

A gesture. A phrase. The humor and strength I carry.

And wounds I’m still working with.

The way I love my own family because of how I was loved…AND sometimes because of how I wanted to be loved.

The people who shape us leave something behind.

Now I know that isn’t the same as having them here. I don’t want to pretend it is.

But love leaves traces.

My dad’s life is part of what made me who I am. His death is part of that too.

I would not have chosen it. But here it is.

And the question my practice asks is pretty simple…

Given that this is here right now, how do I meet it?

Not…

How do I get rid of it?

Not…

How do I become someone who is above it?

Just…

How do I meet this by being kind to myself?

Maybe today I let myself be sad.

Maybe I remember the way he would say  “hey sugga” and smile.

Maybe I tell a funny joke about people farting on a silent retreat.

Maybe I don’t make myself useful for a while.

There’s a phrase some people use…

“Grief is love with nowhere to go.”

I understand what they mean…

We can’t call the person. We can’t touch them. We can’t care for them in the ways we once did.

But I’m not sure the love has nowhere to go…

Maybe it changes direction. Perhaps it moves into memory.

Into the way we care for the people who are still here.

Into the way we stop postponing what matters.

Into the tenderness we bring when someone else is grieving.

The love is still moving. And maybe grief is one of the ways we feel that.

I don’t know whether grief gets smaller. Maybe life gets larger around it.

There are new relationships. New responsibilities. New joys. New losses too.

The absence is still there, but it’s held inside a wider life.

And then there are days like today when all of that falls away…and I’m just a daughter missing her Dad.

That is what’s true.

I don’t need to make it more spiritual than it is.

I miss my Dad.

I love him.

He died.

And today it hurts.

Practice lets me know that.

To breathe with it.

To soften where I can.

To leave the places that won’t soften alone for now.

No forcing.

No timeline.

No demand that the heart release what it still holds.

Just this moment.

This grief.

This love.

This breath.

Love was here.

Love is still here.

And today, that’s enough.

May this benefit someone who is grieving with me 🙏🏾❤️