Grief Is Not a Problem to Be Solved
On sorrow that has nowhere to go, and what happens when it is finally given room.
Grief is one of the few human experiences that asks nothing of us except to be felt. This makes it almost intolerable in a culture that measures worth by resolution.
Unfelt grief does not evaporate. It settles. It becomes fatigue, irritability, a flatness that no holiday relieves. It becomes an ache in the chest that every scan declares healthy.
In practice I have found that grief rarely needs interpretation. It needs a witness, a slower pace and the assurance that no one is waiting for it to finish. Given those things, it moves — not away, but through.
What remains afterwards is not the absence of loss. It is a person who can carry it without being carried by it.