What If Grief Is a Visit?

I’ve been thinking a lot about grief lately. Not how to get rid of it, fix it, or move through it faster, but what might happen if we looked at it differently.

For me, grief has become a little less frightening when I think of it as a visit. When someone we love dies, we lose the ability to experience them in the ways we’re accustomed to. We can’t hear their voice across the room. We can’t reach for their hand. We can’t see their face or get that familiar text message.

But sometimes, something happens. A song comes on that they loved. You catch a familiar scent. You find yourself laughing at a memory you haven’t thought about in years. You feel, for just a moment, like they are standing beside you.

And then comes that ache. That sudden, almost physical awareness that they are not here in the way they used to be. I’ve started thinking of those moments differently.

What if that feeling is a visit?

I believe that energy never truly disappears; it changes form. And perhaps the energy of the people we love is still moving through the world, finding its way back to us in ways we don't always understand. Maybe that warmth we feel isn't something we need to explain away. Maybe the tears aren't a sign that we're doing grief wrong.

Maybe grief is what happens when we feel something we can no longer see. That idea doesn't make grief painless. It doesn't make me believe we should be grateful for loss or pretend that death doesn't hurt. It simply gives me another way to hold the hurt. Instead of thinking, I’m grieving because they're gone, I can sometimes think, I'm grieving because I can still feel them.

And somehow, there is something incredibly beautiful about that.

Grief is love with nowhere physical to go, but perhaps it isn't nowhere. Perhaps it moves through us. Perhaps it visits us.

So when grief comes knocking, I don't always want to shut the door. Sometimes I want to invite it in. Sit with it. Let it tell me who I miss. Let it remind me of what mattered. Let me feel, even for a moment, the energy of someone I loved.

And then, when the wave passes, I can carry a little of that love with me.

Maybe grief isn't something we have to conquer. Maybe sometimes, it's simply someone we love coming to visit. And maybe that's a beautiful thing.