“I thought I would be better at grieving.”

I had a conversation with a client a while ago where they shared.

“I thought I would be better at this (grieving).”

So I asked them what better would have looked like.

They weren't really sure.

“I don't know. I just thought I wouldn't be this broken. I thought I would handle it better.”

And then they said something that kept coming back around throughout our calls:

“I just miss them.”

Every time they said it over the months that followed, they cried.

And of course they did.

It had only been a few days.

Knowing it is coming doesn't mean you're ready when it comes.

This is something I hear often from people who have been anticipating a death.

They knew it was coming. They knew their person was sick. They had watched the decline and had been grieving in their own way for months, sometimes years.

They had imagined the phone call. They had thought about what it might feel like when the person was gone.

They may have even felt relief when the person died. Relief that they weren't suffering anymore. Relief that the appointments were over. Relief that the worrying had stopped.

All of those feelings can be true.

And then, suddenly, the person is actually gone.

And something happens that you can't fully rehearse for.

You realize there will be no more phone calls, no more sitting beside them with a cup of tea, no more making them a meal or hearing their voice from the other room.

The person you've been preparing to lose is now actually missing from your physical world.

And knowing that was coming doesn't necessarily make it hurt any less.

There is a difference between anticipating a death and living after it.

I think sometimes we expect anticipatory grief to prepare us for grief after death.

As though we've been doing the work already, and when the death happens, we should somehow be better equipped to handle it.

But grief isn't an exam you've been studying for.

There isn't a point where you can say:

“Okay. I've processed enough. I should be good at this now.”

You can know someone is going to die. You can have talked about it, cried about it, made plans, and said goodbye.

And then they can die, and you can still feel completely undone.

Because now you are living in the reality you had been imagining.

And reality is different.

“I just miss them.”

Sometimes grief doesn't need to be more complicated than that.

I miss them.

I want to call them.

I want them to be here.

I want one more cup of tea. One more ordinary Tuesday.

There is something so painful about realizing that the person isn't just somewhere else.

They aren't going to walk through the door. You can't reach for your phone and have them answer.

And there isn't anything you can do to change that.

That is a very hard thing for a human being to comprehend.

So what do you do with that kind of grief?

Sometimes you cry.

You take a bath. You go for a walk. You make something you love to eat. You call a friend. You watch something familiar.

You talk about them.

You don't talk about them.

You laugh at something and then feel guilty for laughing.

You feel okay for twenty minutes and then something catches you off guard.

You breathe.

You get through the next hour.

Then the next one.

There isn't a right way to do those first days.

And there certainly isn't a grade.

You don't have to be better at this.

If you have recently lost someone you love, especially if the death was expected, you might find yourself thinking:

I thought I would be more prepared.

I thought I would be handling this better.

I knew this was coming.

Why does it hurt this much?

Maybe the answer is simply that you loved them.

And now you miss them.

That doesn't mean you've gone backwards.

It doesn't mean you weren't prepared.

It doesn't mean you aren't coping.

It means someone you love is no longer here in the way they were before.

And that is a profound change to live through.

So perhaps, for now, there is nothing to be better at.

Perhaps there is just this:

You miss them.

And you are allowed to miss them.

You are allowed to cry.

You are allowed to feel relief and devastation in the same breath.

You are allowed to have a good afternoon.

You are allowed to fall apart that evening.

You are allowed to take your time.

You don't have to be good at this.

You can just be where you are.