Grief

I’ve walked with her many times over my life, but in the past four years she has stayed in a way that has felt, at times, all-consuming. When I wake, she is there. When I lie down to sleep, she hasn’t left. I have wanted her to go. I have asked why she’s here, what she is trying to teach me. I’ve tried to move her through ocean dips, yoga asana, sound baths, even alcohol to numb her. Still, she remains.

Earlier in my life, I didn’t think much about grief. I experienced loss and sadness, but I don’t remember it feeling like this.

Grief can be unpredictable. Some days, you might move through hours without noticing it at all. And then, suddenly, it arrives. A memory, a thought, a realization that the person you love is gone from your life in this form. Other times, it feels like a quiet hum in the background, always there. A steady reminder that something and someone important is missing.

Losing my sister, and now my mom, has been deeply painful. I knew, in a distant way, that I would likely outlive them. But I wasn’t prepared for the finality of it.

My mind often goes to what I could have done differently. If only I had reached out to my sister sooner. Why didn’t I spend more time? In my heart, I know I showed up with love, care, and presence, especially through my mom’s journey with Alzheimer’s. There were many years where her needs came before my own. And still, my mind returns to regret and “shoulds.”

If you’ve experienced loss, you might recognize this too, the way the mind tries to rewrite the past, even when we know we did the best we could with what we had at the time.

There is also the reality that nothing can bring them back. And in some ways, I knew my mom was no longer living in a way I would have wanted for her. But even with that knowing, there is a deep ache around time, this sense that there should have been more of it. I’m not sure it would ever feel like enough.

Some days feel lighter. I can think of them with love without being overwhelmed by sadness. I can feel grateful for my life—my children, my family, my work, the people who are here with me now.

And some days, or moments within days, feel heavy. The sadness sits in my body. Everything slows. It can be hard to focus, hard to feel motivated, hard to make sense of how life continues without them.

I notice that staying busy can make things feel more manageable; caring for others, moving my body, tending to daily life. But in the quiet moments, grief often returns. My heart aches. My mind softens into sadness.

Grief doesn’t move in a straight line. It doesn’t follow a timeline. It shifts, changes, softens, and intensifies in its own way. And while we may wish to move past it, often what we are asked to do instead is learn how to live alongside it with care, with compassion, and, over time, with a little more space to breathe.

A Poem About Grief

Whether grief is a mountain range
towering high above you,

or an unsettling hum
in a desert
you didn’t know
you’d have to travel through,

a volcano,
indiscriminate
as it wildly erupts,

or an earthquake
that never prepares you
before it breaks everything up,

a storm of waves that turn the ocean
into an inescapable dome

a starless void of silence
millions of light years from home,

for whatever shape grief takes,
its presence claims space,
unapologetically pushing the boundaries
of logic, time, and place.

You are not a failure
when you cannot
make the grief just
“go away.”

It’ll take time
to move through this landscape
and I hope you know
that’s okay.

Morgan Harper Nichols