Where She Still Lives.

Grief, memory, and the quiet places my mother left behind.

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  • The Broken Heart

    The Broken Heart

    The five stages of grief, also known as the Kübler-Ross model, outline the emotional journey people often go through when experiencing loss—especially the death of a loved one. But grief isn’t exclusive to death. Loss is loss. Whether it’s the end of a friendship, a relationship, or the loss of a sense of self—grief finds a way in.

    Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.

    They don’t always come in order. In my experience, they rarely do. Sometimes they show up all at once. Sometimes not at all. And honestly, I think there should be two more: fear and avoidance. I’ve had my share of both.

    It’s been a year and a half since I watched my mother die and that moment is seared in my memory. Since then, I’ve felt every emotion and welcomed the grief process—not always with open arms, but I chose to let it in.

    And still, I resist anger.

    I can be a very passive person. It takes a lot for me to get truly angry—the kind of anger that erupts, that demands to be heard. I imagine perfect anger as something almost beautiful: you scream, you cry, you throw things, you say what’s on your heart… and then it’s over. Truth has been expressed. You’ve emptied yourself.

    But I worry that if I let myself go there, I won’t come back. That if I lose trust or hit my emotional limit, I’ll cross some point of no return.

    My mother wasn’t an angry person. She had every reason to be, but she chose love. She voiced her frustrations. She lost her patience, sure—but I never saw her angry angry. My father, on the other hand, only knew anger. He was the angriest person I’ve ever known. And I often wondered what pain made him that way.

    As a child, I made a quiet vow: I don’t want to be like that.

    The upside is that I learned to control my anger.
    The downside? I never learned how to express it.

    But anger is human. Just like joy, like sorrow, like love.

    And maybe that’s the thing. Maybe all anger is, is heartbreak in disguise. Maybe I’m not angry. Maybe my heart is just broken. And maybe that’s what these stages of grief are really about: not just processing loss, but surviving heartbreak.

    Because when you lose someone you love, your heart breaks. It cracks. It comes undone. You can’t control it, and it hurts. But if you let it—if you really let it—the light does start to shine through those cracks. You begin to feel joy again. You remember love.

    I miss my mom.

    Our relationship was often backwards, but she was still my mother. She raised me. She made sacrifices for me. She taught me how to walk, how to love, how to be a person in this world. She held me when I was little, and somehow—no matter how old I got—she never really let go.

    There was comfort in just knowing she was there.
    In the sound of her voice.
    In the smell of her home.
    In the softness of her skin. Her beautiful hands.
    In the unconditional love that let me be fully myself.

    My heart is broken—for her, for me, for the way her life ended. For the love she gave but didn’t always receive. For the moments she never got to experience. For my son, who lost her too—and whose little heart cracked when she died.

    Is that what we’ve been avoiding all along? Just… heartbreak?

    Maybe fear and avoidance belong in the model of grief because we’re trying so hard not to feel the break. But what if we let it? What if we let our hearts break open just a little—enough for healing to find its way in?

    As the great Pema Chödrön says,
    “Begin with a broken heart—vulnerable and tender, shared with other people… Stay connected when you really want to withdraw. The vulnerable part is the human part. That’s the connection.”

    Right now, all I feel is heartbreak.
    I miss having a parent.
    Even with all the role reversals, it was comforting to have her here.
    Just knowing she existed.

    I seek comfort now in small ways.
    Some days, I’m too aware that I just want to be held.
    Some days, I miss her so much that I look for her in the arms of the people I love.
    That’s when I need their hugs the most—when my heart quietly asks for that embrace.

    Maybe healing begins there.
    With a broken heart.
    And the choice to let it break… so that it can heal.

  • Brave

    Brave

    I’ve been thinking a lot about bravery—what it actually means to be brave. Is it trying something new even when you’re scared? Even when the outcome is uncertain? Is it standing up for yourself, or for the people you love? Is it just surviving something hard?

    My mom was one of the bravest people I’ve ever known. I don’t know if she was born that way or if life made her that way.

    She had a really tough childhood, and she endured it. Then she left her home, her family, her friends—the only people she trusted—to come here from Peru with two small kids and no guarantees. She didn’t speak the language. She didn’t know anyone except my aunt and my dad, who, honestly, turned out to be a huge disappointment.

    But even after he let us down, in a place that wasn’t home yet, she stayed. Not for him—for us. She left him too. She chose us. She chose herself. That’s brave.

    She fought through so much—abuse, loneliness, illness, starting over in a new place—and she survived. She raised us alone. No money, no backup, no safety net to lean on. I don’t know how she did it. I don’t know if that was bravery or strength or just pure will. Probably all of it.

    Maybe when you have no other options and you need to survive, bravery shows up and guides you. It pushes you to listen.

    I don’t know if I’m as brave as my mom. I’ve always leaned more into fear and safety than the unknown. But my will to survive? That’s hers. That part of me is all her.

    I am brave, though. Maybe not in an obvious way, but in the quiet, constant way. Just navigating life—being a mom, a daughter, a wife, a friend, a human in this wild world—that takes bravery. I do hard things. I speak honestly. I tell people I love them. I tell them they are worthy, and why. That counts for something.

    Maybe we’re asking the wrong question sometimes. Instead of wondering what makes us brave, maybe we should be asking what makes us forget that we already are. Because honestly? Just being alive takes courage. Loving people. Losing them. Letting go. Starting over. Facing yourself. All of it.

    I think about how we teach our kids to be brave from the very beginning—make friends, ride a bike, jump in the pool, go to school. We cheer them on through their fear, remind them they can do hard things.

    And somewhere along the way, we stop giving ourselves that same grace.

    Letting go takes courage—but so does holding on. And courage doesn’t exist without fear. You can’t be brave unless you’re scared first. That fear you feel? That’s not weakness. That’s your moment. That’s the opportunity to be brave.

    I’ll be honest: I don’t always have the courage when it comes to me. I’m great at being brave for other people. I show up, figure out what they need before they even ask. I keep everything intact.

    But when it comes to what I want or need? I hesitate. I overthink. I fear failure. And for what—my pride? Some comfort? A little control?

    When you’re used to being the one who holds everyone else up, you start putting yourself last. You become the safe space for others—but not for yourself. You stay small, stay quiet, stay “safe,” because shaking things up feels like too much. Even when the thing you’re protecting was never all that stable to begin with.

    And still—we keep going. Even when life tries to crush us. Even when we feel like we can’t. We do.

    That’s bravery too.

    We’re already all of it—brave, strong, capable. We just forget sometimes, because the world has a way of making us feel small.

    So this is your reminder (and mine): you’re already doing the hard stuff. Every single day. You face the unknown every day.

    Be kind to yourself.

  • The Old Friend

    The Old Friend

    A panic attack, by definition, is “a sudden episode of intense fear or anxiety and physical symptoms, based on a perceived threat rather than imminent danger.”

    It’s not wrong, but it’s incomplete.

    For those of us who live with them, panic attacks feel deeply personal—custom-tailored to amplify our worst fears. Sometimes those fears are buried so deep, we didn’t even know they existed. Panic gives those fears a voice. A body.

    Reading the definition might help you name the experience, but it doesn’t dull the impact. It doesn’t stop the awful, paralyzing sensations. In the middle of it, rational thought becomes useless, and as impossible as it sounds, you just have to ride it out and hope you survive. At least, that’s what it was like for me—especially in the beginning.

    I’ve been having panic attacks for as long as I can remember. I think they started in my early teens. Back then, I didn’t have language for what was happening—I just knew something felt wrong. The terror would strike out of nowhere. Sudden. Disorienting. All-consuming.

    For years, I thought I was losing my mind and was afraid I’d eventually be institutionalized. That became one of my greatest fears—not the attacks themselves, but what they might do to me. That I’d stay frozen in that place forever. That I’d lose my grip on reality.

    It wasn’t until my late twenties, after a string of personal losses and one particularly devastating episode, that I finally learned what I was dealing with: panic disorder. The diagnosis brought unexpected relief. I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t broken. I was having panic attacks—something real. Something explainable.

    But even with the knowledge of that, I lived in fear of the day I was certain would break me: the day I lost my mom.

    She had been struggling with her health for a long time, and I carried the anticipation of her death like a weight strapped to my chest. I pictured the worst panic attack of my life—imagined it would destroy me completely.

    When panic hits, it hits me hard. It’s a full-body dissociation—an out-of-body experience. I can see myself, but I’m not in myself. Time fractures, like the world has broken into disconnected frames. My limbs go numb. My body locks up. I become untethered, swallowed by something invisible. This kind of panic was terrifying on its own—I could only imagine what it would do to me when my mother died.

    Looking back, I can see that my body was always trying to protect me. In its own distorted way, panic was my nervous system’s desperate attempt at control. And control became my survival strategy.

    I coped through superstition, rituals, routines, regimens. I craved sameness and predictability. The unknown scared me. Things I couldn’t control—like flying—left me paralyzed. Not enough to stop me, but enough to rob me of peace.

    Eventually I went looking for the root of it all. I wanted to understand why. Why my body turned to panic. Why I couldn’t just be “normal.”

    The answer was painfully simple: I hadn’t learned it was okay to be me.

    I was always different from my family. I felt things more deeply. I asked too many questions and never settled for easy answers. I was both curious and cautious—always needing to understand why. And when I couldn’t, it left me unsteady, like the ground had shifted beneath me. The internet would’ve been a lifeline back then. Encyclopedias and books couldn’t keep up with how urgently I needed answers.

    The version of “normal” I grew up around never felt right. I tried so hard to fit in, to become who I thought I was supposed to be. The idea that I might never manage it—that I might always feel like an outsider—was overwhelming. It made the world feel unsafe. I didn’t know how to put all of this into words. 

    But my body knew. And it spoke through panic.

    Once I had a name for what was happening, I did everything I could to avoid it. I planned. I prepared. I micromanaged my life. But avoidance only made things worse. Panic feeds on fear—and fear thrived on my efforts to keep it away.

    I realized I had to stop running. I had to face it. Acknowledge it. Learn how to live with it. 

    Finally, through therapy and self-work, I’ve learned to recognize the signs. I’ve learned how to talk to the panic when it comes. I’m not as afraid of it anymore. I coach myself through it: Okay. We’re okay. Just move. Just breathe. YOU. ARE. SAFE.

    It sounds simple, but it’s not. It takes everything I have. And when it passes, I’m exhausted—drained for the rest of the day. But I’ve made progress. The attacks come less often now. They’re shorter. Softer. More manageable.

    When it happened—when my mother died—panic spared me.

    I don’t know why. Maybe the universe knew I’d reached my limit. Maybe the years of waiting for the worst were the source of my anxiety all along. Because when she was gone, there was nothing left to fear. Just stillness. Just grief. 

    And when I miss her the most—her voice, her warmth, her love—when I grieve not just what I lost, but what my son will never know, what her dog still waits for, what the world feels like without her light…panic still doesn’t come. 

    I used to think that panic would be the thing that undid me. But grief, as crushing as it is, doesn’t leave room for panic. It demands presence. Feeling.

    Maybe that’s the difference. Grief and panic don’t always coexist. Panic floods in when we try not to feel or are too afraid to. And grief is feeling. All of it. So in the fullness of feeling, panic stays quiet.

    The stillness didn’t last.  But while it was here, it taught me something I hadn’t understood before: panic doesn’t always show up when you expect it. And sometimes, surviving your worst fear can bring unexpected peace.

    Panic hasn’t disappeared. It still shows up, uninvited—tapping me on the shoulder from time to time, reminding me to feel. I don’t always listen, but I know what it wants now. I know its shape. I can talk to it like an old unwelcome friend. I can look it in the eye—not with comfort, but with clarity. 

  • Friend.

    Friend.

    What Would I Do Without My Friends? Honestly, I don’t know—and I don’t like to think about it.

    Friendship has always been essential to me. Not optional. Not a luxury. Absolutely essential.

    If you know me, you know I like most people. I’m friendly, curious, and will strike up a conversation with just about anyone—my husband jokes that I’d talk to a wall if it talked back to me. People fascinate me. Everyone has something unique to offer, and I genuinely enjoy learning about their lives, their stories, and what has shaped them. You never know what you might discover from the person sitting next to you.

    I’m not one for small talk, though. I skip past the surface and dive right in: Tell me everything. Who are you, really? I want to know you. This inquisitive nature has always been a part of me. I learned early on that people—just people—are the real teachers of life. Before the internet, before books, before podcasts and social media, there were just people, with stories to tell.

    While my family has always given me love and support, I’ve come to understand that friends offer a different kind of emotional connection—one that complements, rather than replaces, what family provides. Throughout my life, my friendships have filled emotional spaces that family couldn’t always reach, not out of absence, but simply because the roles are different. Being surrounded by people from all walks of life has helped me see the world— and myself—through so many different perspectives. 

    There are the ones I laugh with, the ones I cry with. The ones who nerd out with me over research and details. The ones who lovingly challenge my opinions. The ones who lead with their hearts, and the ones who live by their souls. Some are soft and gentle; others are vibrant and loud, with spirits that shine brighter than the sun.

    There are those I rarely see, but when we reconnect, it’s like no time has passed. No explanations. No awkwardness. Just love.

    And then there are the friends that were only meant to be in my life for a season or two. Some good, some not so good. These are the friendships that taught me some hard lessons and the only way to move on from them was to do so with gratitude.

    And lastly, the friends who are more like sisters. At some point, they stopped registering as just friends—they became part of my foundation, a part of who I am. They are family.

    The kind of trust I have in these women—all of my friends—is what helps me sleep at night. I’m not whole without them. Their love has cushioned my spirit on my worst days. Their love has kept me safe when I’ve been scared. And when my mother died,  when my heart was broken in a way I didn’t think could ever be repaired, their love held me. It carried me and kept me standing.

    Yes, friendship can be complicated. It is a relationship, after all. But when it’s real, it’s rooted in support, not competition. In encouragement, not jealousy. And in presence when you don’t have the words. 

    We’re all in this life thing together, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

  • The Good Cry

    The Good Cry

    Tears don’t come easily to me. When I was little, I was taught to hold them in. “Oh, don’t cry, honey,” or just “Stop crying”—as if crying weren’t okay. A tear or two might be tolerated, but anything more had to be wiped away quickly.

    My mother didn’t cry much either. She kept her past and her feelings mostly to herself, rarely showed emotion—aside from love, of course. No one in my family really cried. The emotional range seemed limited to either “okay” or “happy.” Anger showed up occasionally, but it was usually shut down just as fast.

    But crying is just as human as laughing or shouting with joy—so why does it still feel so wrong? Maybe it’s because some of us were conditioned to believe vulnerability is weakness: awkward, uncomfortable, even shameful. And despite all the work I’ve done to unlearn that belief, it still lingers. It runs deep in my family. It’s a tough one to break. 

    I’ve always been drawn to people who feel deeply and express it freely. People who could let a good cry wash through them without the impulse to shut it down. In my twenties, I had a close friend—still a dear friend to this day—who was beautifully in touch with her emotions. She taught me that love isn’t a word reserved only for romantic partners. She told her friends and family she loved them. Openly. Freely.

    When she was heartbroken—after a loss or a breakup—she would take to the bed. She’d cry, watch sad movies, eat pizza and brownies. She let herself feel it all. Cried and cried until there were no more tears left. And then, one day, she’d get up and begin again. I found that so powerful. I saw only strength in her openness. It was beautiful—and completely foreign to me.

    I didn’t know how to do that.

    For years, I struggled with intense panic and anxiety. My nervous system would crash without warning, and I had no idea why. The turning point came when I finally asked myself a simple but important question: Why is this happening to me?

    That question led me inward. As I began to more deeply explore the process of healing, I saw the connection between my physical symptoms and my emotional world—or, more accurately, the absence of one. I realized I hadn’t learned how to feel, or that it was even safe to feel. And when you don’t know how to feel, your body finds a way to feel for you.

    Just understanding that made it a little easier—safer, even—to be me. I’ve learned that vulnerability and safety are very connected. If you don’t feel safe, it’s nearly impossible to be vulnerable. And vulnerability doesn’t always show up in the form of tears. Sometimes, it’s simply being honest about what you need, or admitting that you’re not okay.

    I had to trust and let help in. That’s not easy, especially when you’re still haunted by old habits and patterns. But letting people in—present friends, a loving family, and the guidance of a good therapist–made all the difference.

    I used to believe that the depth of my grief could only be measured by the number of tears I shed, that if I wasn’t crying, I wasn’t feeling it deeply enough. But I’ve come to understand that grief and pain wear many faces, and tears are only one of them. There are so many ways to release what we carry inside, and it looks different for each of us.

    Today, for me, it looks like writing. Tomorrow it might be tears. I’ll let it move through me however it needs to. 

  • The Rough Month

    The Rough Month

    The other day at a family gathering, I asked my cousin’s boyfriend how he was doing. His answer caught me off guard with its quiet honesty. He’d just come through a heavy part of the year—an emotional rollercoaster he can’t seem to avoid.

    For him, the end of June and the month of July aren’t just sunny California days—they’re a season of remembering. Around this time five years ago, he unexpectedly lost his mother, to whom he was very close. This stretch of time also holds her birthday, her wedding anniversary with his father, and other deeply personal milestones.

    Summertime, for him, carries a weight most people around him can’t see. It’s not just grief—it’s memory, love, longing, and everything in between.

    As he spoke, I felt an unspoken recognition settle between us. I knew what he meant by a “rough month.” Those special dates—birthdays, anniversaries, the day someone left—they have a way of creeping up on you. Even when your mind forgets, your body remembers. There’s a subtle heaviness to those days, like something tugging at you from the inside. You might feel more irritable, more sensitive, or just vaguely off. The world keeps moving, but something in you has shifted—tilted by absence and stirred by memory. And even if no one else sees it, you feel it in your bones.

    We move so quickly through our lives that we rarely stop to trace the source of that sudden unease. But grief has its own calendar. It doesn’t ask for permission. It doesn’t follow logic. It just shows up—suddenly, and always right on time.

    That’s something I’m still learning to accept: to stop resisting it, to stop rushing it away. I’m learning to give it space. Because sometimes, the most honest thing we can do is let ourselves feel it.

    Through conversations like his, and through my own experience with grief, I’m beginning to understand something people don’t always say out loud: time doesn’t necessarily soften the blow. It doesn’t erase the loss or dull the ache completely. What time offers is space—space to breathe, to move through the days, to learn how to carry the loss a little differently.

    The sun does come back. The birds sing again. Life regains its color. And you do learn how to live again, even if everything feels a little changed.

    But you don’t stop missing them. You don’t forget. The finality of their absence never fully fades. Some mornings, even years later, it still feels fresh. And that’s okay. Maybe it’s the body’s way of keeping them close. Maybe it’s because love—real love—doesn’t end with death.

    It lingers. It lives on.

    Love, unlike life, doesn’t know how to let go.

  • Arroz Con Pollo

    Arroz Con Pollo

    Before our trip to Seattle to visit my brothers, my son asked me out of the blue:
    “What was Grandma’s dying wish?”

    The truth is, my mom’s death came so suddenly that there was no time for last words or final requests. No deep conversations, no plans, no journals, no instructions.

    She wasn’t the type to keep heirlooms or repeat the same stories for us to hold onto. No traditions, no rituals—just small habits that I now find myself repeating without even thinking.

    I didn’t ask her the hard questions. I used to, when I was little, but she made it clear she wasn’t comfortable with them, so I stopped. Instead, I learned to observe. I became quiet, attentive—always hoping to catch whatever she might let slip.

    And honestly? In the end, when it was apparent that her illnesses were taking the better of her, I was afraid. Afraid that asking about her past, her wishes, even asking for her recipes, might somehow invite the end closer. What if she understood why I was asking—and quietly begin to let go? It doesn’t make logical sense, I know. But when someone you love is slipping away and there’s nothing you can do to stop it, superstition can feel like the only thing left to hold onto.

    It didn’t matter, because she died anyway. And now, I regret not asking even the littlest questions. I think she would have loved to share it all. We just didn’t know how to have those conversations.

    Her recipes are the thing that lingers on my mind the most. My mother loved to cook. She didn’t make a big deal out of it—she just showed up with food. Softly. Generously.
    Her arroz con pollo—nobody made it like she did. It was her Peruvian specialty. I’ve tried versions at restaurants and family gatherings, but nothing comes close.

    Thankfully, my cousin managed to scribble down a version of her rice—thank goodness for that. If you knew my mom, you’d know there was never a real recipe. She just cooked—no measurements, no instructions—just instinct and heart. But somehow, just that once, she recited something to my cousin. Maybe she sensed we’d need it someday. Maybe she felt more at ease sharing it with her and not me. Maybe she was a little superstitious, too. Whatever the reason, I’m so grateful she did.

    For my brother’s birthday this year, I was determined to make her arroz con pollo—a “mom meal.” I spent the whole day anxious, missing her deeply.

    We made it. And somehow… it came close.

    Was it was because we made it together, thinking of her? Maybe this was her dying wish after all—to carry her love forward in the things she used to do, especially the food she made.
    The moment it started to smell like hers, we all lit up. It didn’t look quite the same, but it felt like her.
    It was the first time we did something that felt like a tradition she left behind. The first thing that felt like her legacy.

    I miss my mom so much. Especially here. I wish she were with us in person. In a way, she is.
    But these are the moments when grief sneaks in and squeezes your heart—when your throat tightens and you can barely breathe through the memory.

    Still, that night, in the warmth of the kitchen, in the food on our plates and in our conversations, she was here and that meant everything.

  • Bananas

    Bananas

    When you’re grieving, people don’t always show up the way you expect them to—but that doesn’t mean they’re not showing up. Grief is strange like that. It blurs the lines between presence and absence, between words and silence. Sometimes, what people say or do—no matter how small, awkward, or even bizarre—is simply an act of love.

    In my own grief, that’s what I noticed most: not what people said, but what they did. The truth is, what do you even say to someone who’s lost someone they love? Really—nothing. Aside from “Hey, guess what?! It was all just a bad dream!”… words fall short. Words. Fall. Short.

    What stayed with me were the subtle moments. The real ones.

    A friend at work didn’t say a word to me for days after my mom passed. But I noticed her watching me gently from across the room. I could feel her presence, her care, even in the silence. Over time, she edged a little closer, until finally she stood just far enough for me to say, “It’s okay, you can come closer. I see you.” She smiled, shy and sincere, and said, “I didn’t know what to say. I’m sorry.” Then came an awkward side hug.
    I laughed. We both laughed. It was so simple, so tender—so human. In the fog of grief, that moment still remains clear, and I’m grateful for it.

    Another friend handed me a bunch of bananas and said nothing. It was random and oddly perfect. That made me laugh too. Still does.

    One offered a mix of practical advice and levity: “Get more death certificates than you think you’ll need,” she said, right after telling me about the sleepaway camp her family went to after her mother-in-law died.

    My closest friends? They stayed normal around me—because they knew that’s what I needed. And when I really needed them, they were there. With open arms. Open hearts.

    My sisters, my best friends? They got mad when I was mad. They cried when I cried. They made “too soon”jokes. They said what they felt, with no filter, no fear. That’s real love. That’s home.

    Then there were the ones who had known the same kind of loss—not just in theory, but in their bones. The ones who had walked through the same fire and learned how to carry the heat. They said things like, “It’s hard, but it’ll get easier. Just be where you are—wherever that is, in this moment.” And somehow, those simple words didn’t feel like advice. They felt like shelter.

    They were the ones who didn’t need to fill the space. They just sat with me. In silence. And still, I felt understood. I didn’t have to explain myself. I didn’t have to pretend. Our language existed in the pauses, in the glances, in the heaviness and grace we both carried. It lived in the heart—where grief and love speak most clearly.

    And yet, the gestures that meant the most? The quiet hugs. Long enough to recharge my heart. Nothing needed to be said.

    Grief isn’t a test of friendship or humanity. It’s a mirror. And everyone reflects something different. Let people move through loss with the dignity of their own experience. There is no right way to show up. Only real ways. And sometimes, that’s more than enough.

    What have I needed? 

    Honestly? I just want my mom back. And I know that’s not possible. So a warm hug goes a very long way. Maybe a few tears or a good laugh. 

    And now, a few people I love have lost someone close to them. You’d think, after what I’ve been through, I’d know what to say. But I don’t. Because the truth remains: there is nothing to say.

    All I want to do is sit beside them in silence. Hold them. Let them know—truly—that I’m here. Just here.

    I know their grief will be its own unique journey—curated just for them. And though it may hurt like hell, there is beauty in it, too. How do you explain that to someone who is still in pain?

    You don’t. You simply stay close, and let them find it for themselves.

  • Hello, Grief.

    Hello, Grief.

    Grief is interesting. When we lose someone—through death, divorce, the end of a friendship, or any profound shift that life gives us—we often know that grief is coming. We brace for it. But the truth is, we never know how or where it will find us. And it will find us.

    For some, grief is quiet. It arrives in waves of tears and sadness. Honestly, I envy that version. I envy the release, the clarity, the surrender. Feeling sadness and letting the tears fall has always been hard for me. My grief tends to show up in my body instead—rashes, headaches, dizziness, panic attacks, anxiety, tightness in my chest, loss of appetite, or sometimes insatiable hunger. For a long time, I didn’t understand what was happening. I just assumed I was born broken.

    It wasn’t until I lost my beloved dog, Oliver—and then, just months later, my beautiful friend Carrie—that I began to understand what grief really is, and what it can do to your body when you try to outrun it. Or, in my case, when you don’t even realize you’re running.

    When Oliver died, my heart broke. I broke it on purpose—choosing to end his pain and hold him in his final moments. It was the worst day of my life. People say the bond we share with our dogs is sacred—and it’s true. I still feel the echo of that goodbye.

    When Carrie died, my spirit broke. I had never lost a friend that close—someone who was truly family, chosen and cherished. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know how to begin grieving.

    After they were gone, I looked fine. I rationalized their deaths, shed a few tears, and moved forward—just like I always had. But something inside of me changed. My nervous system began to unravel. I started having dizzy spells that would stop me in my tracks—sudden, relentless, terrifying. It went on for months until I could finally name it: grief. Not gone—just disguised.

    When my mother passed, grief came again—but in a different costume. This time, it showed up as apathy. I stopped caring about the small things—bills, plants, exercise, appointments. I disconnected from the routines that once grounded me. I disassociated. Everything I was naturally good at just… fell away.

    And still, I don’t cry much. I wish I did. I wish I could feel that sweet release more often—to let it all go and allow someone to hold me in the middle of it. But the tears come only when they absolutely have to—at a memorial, or in quiet, fleeting moments. Even then, they don’t stay long. It’s like a wall goes up the moment grief gets too close.

    That wall… it isn’t new. It was built long ago—out of habit, conditioning, survival. It lives in my body, in my blood. Somewhere along the way, I learned that grief wasn’t safe. That feeling it fully might destroy me.

    In retrospect, grief has been with me for a long time—a quiet passenger, often riding alongside depression. Some time before losing Oliver, Carrie, or even my mother, I experienced a string of losses: my sister-in-law, who I lived with; my father, with whom I had a strained relationship; then his sister; then another aunt I was very close to; and, not long before that, my grandmother. One after another. And still—I felt nothing. I tried. I forced tears. I made excuses to miss work. But mostly, I was just numb.

    It wasn’t until months later that my body began to speak the language my mind couldn’t: panic attacks, sudden and terrifying. I didn’t know what they were. I truly thought I was dying. But it was grief—delayed, buried, and finally surfacing the only way it knew how.

    But I’m learning. Bit by bit. With honesty, and a little more courage than before, I’m beginning to understand that grief isn’t something to escape or silence. It’s something to meet—to honor, to make space for, to understand. Even when it doesn’t look the way we expect. Even when it’s messy, inconvenient, or unfamiliar. Even when it doesn’t come in tears. Even when it takes its time.

    Maybe we’re all grieving something—or someone. And maybe that’s okay. It just might be okay to fall apart a little and let grief speak. Maybe we are all safer than we think we are — because grief isn’t always here to break us. Sometimes, it’s here to open us.

  • Emily

    Emily

    When my mother passed away, she didn’t leave behind a dramatic will or family heirlooms. Just a few boxes—and Emily.

    “Emmy,” as my mom affectionately called her, wasn’t her whole world. We were. But Emmy held a special place. She was my mom’s constant companion, her comfort, and her emotional anchor. She entrusted her to me when she was gone.

    But Emily has never felt like my dog.

    She didn’t come into my life by choice or through a joyful connection. She arrived as a responsibility—a four-legged inheritance—with her own routines, her own quirks, and a stubborn spirit that so closely mirrors my mother’s. She doesn’t come when she’s called, she ignores commands, and she greets every attempt at discipline or training with quiet defiance—the same kind of strength I both admired and wrestled with in my mom.

    And, if I’m being honest, some days I resent her for it.

    Because the truth is, I don’t love her the way my mother did—not with the same joy, or patience, or softness. And admitting that comes with a lot of guilt.

    I care for her. I feed her. I cuddle her. I whisper that I love her. I try. I really do. But I haven’t let her all the way in—and that hurts us both. I know she’s grieving too. I see it in her eyes—those searching, gentle eyes that keep looking for the person who’s no longer here. She misses my mom just as much as I do.

    And still, a part of me holds back.

    I’m still mourning. Still angry at the universe for taking so much—and handing me something I didn’t ask for. A living reminder of what I’ve lost. A weight I didn’t feel ready to carry.

    My mother loved without conditions. She accepted flaws, weathered moods, and stayed present. That kind of love was steady and forgiving.

    I’m not there yet.

    But I’m trying.

    Some days, when Emily leans against me on the sofa or lays her head in my lap like she used to do with my mom, I feel something shift. Not all at once. Not enough to call it peace. But enough to keep going.

    We’re both figuring it out—together, whether we mean to or not.

    Maybe love isn’t always a lightning bolt. Maybe it’s something slower and more subtle. Maybe it’s a shared ache, a protective bark, or the warmth of a familiar being that won’t leave, even when you try to push it away.

    Maybe that’s all it needs to be right now.