Actually, Nobody Died.

I lay on the carpeted floor, crying quietly as I stared at the ceiling. Beautiful sunshine streamed in and birds sang as boxes were moved in and placed all around me. My family and I had just moved to a beautiful new place, yet my very first reaction was hot, sad tears. I was grieving.

Many of us associate the word "grief" with a death. The dictionary often misleads that way too. The Cambridge  Dictionary defines the word as "a very great sadness, especially at the death of someone." There is definite grief when we lose a loved one to death. However, grief is so much more common than that.

Grief is this "very great sadness" Cambridge mentions, but is often experienced whenever there is a loss we perceive to be major-- a breakup, loss of work, loss of function due to illness, or a friendship ending. 

Grief can also be felt with any significant change, including shifts in important relationships or roles-- a  big move, a new school, a close friend gets married; a new baby is born; a sibling moves out; an adolescent child confides in peers in place of parents. Grief can even extend to loss of a dream.

Sometimes, we also feel grief that is not ours.

My particular flavor of grief involves this "very great sadness." It feels impossibly heavy and weighs down both my physical body and my emotions. I cry hot, heavy tears that feel like they will swallow me whole. I start, but cannot seem to stop.

My particular flavor of grief includes fatigue and loss of appetite, and an increased need for sleep.

What I need in my particular flavor of grief is a listening ear, and a comforting touch. I need presence, not advice. I need my close people to know I will come out of it, but I do not need or appreciate being rushed through it.

I keep saying "my particular flavor of grief" because it is exactly that-- mine. Each person grieves differently, in both internal experience and external expression. Each body feels emotions of grief differently too. What I do and what I need may not be what you do or need. 

I have experienced grief over broken friendships, across-the-ocean moves, dreams, and relationship shifts, to name a few. Laying down on that floor on that gorgeous fall day, I cried simply because it was a change I was about to undergo. I was grieving the shift it would cause to all of my then-current relationships. The move was really good! But I still had to grieve what it meant.

Give yourself permission to call it grief, even if no one has died. 

Give yourself grace to take as long as you need, and to need whoever you need in the process.

Give others permission to be different than you in how they experience and express their grief.

We're all human.

But we're not all the same.

©2022 Maggie Yousef