HOW GRIEF SHOWS UP IN UNEXPECTED PLACES

It is the little things that get me. Not the big, dramatic moments, not the funeral or the eulogy, not the solemn goodbyes or the quiet, aching car rides. It’s the strange, ordinary spaces where grief creeps in. Uninvited. Unexpected. Loud, despite saying nothing.

It’s standing in the queue at the shop, reaching for a bounty, and remembering that they were Dad's favourite chocolate bar. It’s walking past a bench on a sunny day and thinking, “He would’ve loved this spot.”It’s laughing at something silly the kids say, only to feel that sting of guilt in my throat. Like, I shouldn’t be allowed joy. Not yet. It’s passing my driving test and wanting to reach for my phone to ring Dad, only to remember I can’t. That reflex, that need to share the moment with him, hits harder than I ever expected.

Grief doesn’t keep to neat schedules. It doesn’t arrive on cue or wait for its turn. It sneaks into everyday life in text conversations you will never send, meals you won’t share and stories you can’t quite tell anymore because the person who’d laugh the loudest isn't there.

Sometimes I feel fine, like I am managing, coping, and slowly rebuilding, and then I’ll hear a voice that sounds like his in a crowd, or see a man with a familiar smile, and it all rushes back. The loss. The absence. The strangeness of this new version of life I didn’t ask for.

I’ve noticed grief doesn’t always show up as sadness. Sometimes it’s impatience. Foggy thinking. Exhaustion. Sometimes it’s forgetting appointments or feeling disconnected from things I normally love, and sometimes it’s a deep need to be alone, followed quickly by an aching need to not feel lonely.

I don’t think grief ever really leaves. I think it just shapeshifts. At first, it’s heavy and constant. Then, it becomes quieter, not gone, just tucked into the corners of everyday life.

Maybe that is ok, because if grief is the price of love, then I was lucky. Lucky to have had a Dad who made his absence so deeply felt. Lucky that his love echoes in the ordinary, in chocolate, benches, phone calls, little moans, and the way he always told me he was proud.

So, if you are grieving too and you suddenly find yourself crying in the car or staring at a stranger because they remind you of someone you lost, you are not broken. You are just human, and grief is just love with nowhere to go.