It’s been a day, a week, a month, or a year, and the grief you feel is uneven and prickly, and arrives without permission, coming at you in undefined ways. The rollercoaster ride, unsettling to body and mind, causes an unrelenting and haunting experience. Though the experience is palpable for its host, it's one that often has no words. No place to be. And, unlike most pain points, it can’t be seen. The grief effect is nonlinear. Ann Hood, author of Comfort: A Journey Through Grief states it best:

“Grief is not linear. People kept telling me that once this happened or that passed, everything would be better. Some people gave me one year to grieve. They saw grief as a straight line, with a beginning, middle, and end. But it is not linear. It is disjointed."

Grief doesn’t rest, or take breaks, or give you breaks. Instead, it's like a tease that bullies and masterfully hurts you, in ways you might never have imagined. It hurts even more situationally, especially at holiday gatherings, where your loved one may have accompanied you, been by your side, and somehow defined some of the roles you held as part of your persona.

You walk with the hunger to have the one you mourn by your side, at the table, at the gathering, laughing and eating and singing, and dreaming of the New Year. Yet, you carry within you the silent seat in your heart where your beloved lived. It hurts. It’s lonely. It feels never-ending. This is where your relationship to who you lost, the grief you currently feel, and the journey of how it will live within you begins.

In a world that often promises closure as part of the grief relief paradigm—those neat, tidy endings where everything is........

© Psychology Today