Candid Quick Take: Getting to Know Grief

Grief. It’s a word we try to dodge, a feeling we run from, and a conversation we avoid at all costs. For a long time, I was no different. If a song came on that reminded me of someone I’d lost, I would immediately change it. If a place held too many memories, I’d find a different route. It didn’t matter how inconvenient it was—my strategy was to avoid, avoid, avoid. Grief wasn’t going to catch me.

At least, that’s what I thought.

What I didn’t realize is that grief doesn’t need to catch up to you. It doesn’t sprint after you or demand your attention. It’s patient. It simply waits, knowing that eventually, you’ll run out of places to go. And that’s exactly what happened to me.

When I first started sitting with clients in their grief, I’d hear myself processing their pain with them, offering words of comfort, validation, and guidance. I’d think, Who is this person? Surely not the same one who avoids grief at all costs. But the more I sat with others, the more I realized: grief was becoming less of a stranger to me. The more I worked with others in their grief, the more comfortable I became welcoming it into the room. I stopped seeing grief as something to fear or push away. Instead, I started to understand it as something deeply human, even necessary. And now, years later, grief and I have a new understanding—not one I asked for, but one I’ve come to value.

I recently finished my certification as a Certified Grief Informed Professional (CGP) and I'm working toward becoming a Certified Advanced Grief Counseling Specialist (CAGCS). My understanding of grief has deepened even further throughout this process. What I’ve learned—and what I want to share—is that grief isn’t the enemy. It’s not out to destroy us. But to see grief that way, we have to be in a place to sit with it and to let it be a part of our lives.

To help make sense of this, I’ve started to picture grief as sort of an imaginary thing. For me, grief isn’t some ominous figure cloaked in darkness. It’s not a grim reaper or a menacing presence. Instead, it’s a quiet, timid figure, like the shadow of a regular person. Dark in color but not in character. Gentle, shy, but also steady.

In the beginning, grief is awkward. It lingers behind me, trying to stay out of my way but unable to leave. It steps on my heels, clumsy and persistent. I yell at it to go away, but it doesn’t respond. It just steps back, giving me a little space but never disappearing. It’s always there, watching, waiting, reminding me of what I’ve lost.

At first, this makes grief feel unbearable. Every time it gets too close, I’m flooded with memories that bring tears I don’t want to shed. Grief tries to sit with me, to offer comfort, but I push it away. I see it as the source of my pain, not the keeper of my love. I blame it for the ache in my chest, for the weight of the emptiness I feel.

But grief doesn’t fight back. It doesn’t push its way in. It simply stays, steady and certain, waiting for me to make room.

Over time, something shifts. I stop yelling at grief to leave and start inviting it to sit beside me. I realize it isn’t here to hurt me—it’s here because of how deeply I loved. Grief becomes a reminder, not just of what I’ve lost, but of what I had. It starts to show me the funny moments, the joyful memories, the laughter I shared with the person who’s gone. And while those memories still bring tears, they also bring warmth.

Eventually, grief and I find a rhythm. We walk together now, side by side. Grief doesn’t trail behind me anymore, stepping on my heels. It walks with me, keeping pace. Sometimes, grief reminds me of the person I miss, and the tears come again. But other times, grief makes me laugh, bringing to mind moments of joy and connection that I might have forgotten.

Grief is still here because it replaced the person I loved. It’s not going anywhere, and I’ve stopped asking it to leave.

Welcoming grief hasn’t made it painless. There are still days when I beg it to be gentle with me, when I wish it didn’t have to be here at all. But I’ve learned to stop seeing grief as an enemy. It’s a companion—a quiet, patient one—with a job to do. And when I let grief do its job, it makes space for healing. It makes space for love.

No one is ever truly prepared for grief. It comes into our lives uninvited, and it stays. But when we stop fighting it, when we let it walk beside us, we might find that grief has something to offer. It reminds us of the depth of our love, the strength of our connections, and the humanity of our loss.

What I’ve come to understand about grief is that it wasn’t grief itself I was avoiding—it was the ache of missing the person I lost. Because when someone dies and we feel that hollow ache of missing them, there is no solution. When we miss someone who is still living, we can bridge that gap by bringing their presence back into our lives. But with death, that bridge isn’t possible. And so we avoid missing them because we know that the ache of “missing” will go on and on.

Grief doesn’t take the ache away—it can’t. But it doesn’t abandon us to it, either. Grief is not something that can be neatly categorized into stages or steps. It is fluid, shifting and evolving as we move through it. But grief will still walk beside you when there is no other way to go but forward.

We will mourn throughout our grief. We will “miss” throughout our grief. But eventually—when we’re ready—we will also love throughout our grief. Love for what was. Love for what remains.