“Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity…the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.”
— Earl Grollman
A childhood friend lost his father back in November of 2025.
Since then, we’ve talked about it in the way grief requires:
In pieces.
Over time.
Circling the same memories until they land differently.
From these conversations I’ve found myself thinking about my own mother.
Not in the heavy, early-grief way. In smaller, quieter ways.
The kind that arrive without warning and leave just as quietly.
Which brings me to a recent moment I had.
A few weeks ago, I stopped at Starbucks to pick up a coffee I’d ordered through the app.
Once I arrived to pick up my order, I needed to use the restroom first.
While I was washing my hands, I heard the door handle jiggle.
Then jiggle again.
When I opened the door, a little girl stood there.
She was maybe four or five years old.
Her mother was right behind her, gently pulling her back.
“I’m so sorry,” the mother said, clearly embarrassed.
Then, to her daughter: “Charlotte, you have to wait until the person comes out before you can go into the bathroom..
My mother’s name.
I smiled. “Charlotte is a great name. It was my mother’s name.”
The woman’s face softened. She looked relieved.
Maybe even grateful.
I grabbed my coffee and walked to my car.
And something occured to me.
I’d been thinking about my mom more lately, because of my friend.
Because grief has a way of resurfacing when someone else is standing in it.
And here was this random Tuesday morning.
This ordinary moment, carrying her name.
It felt like a nod.
Like my mom checking in.
I didn’t need it to be anything more than that.
But it helped.
The Weight Caregivers Carry After Loss
When you’ve been caregiving for a long time, grief often doesn’t arrive all at once.
You’ve been bracing for it.
Managing appointments.
Making decisions.
Adjusting to the slow erosion of who they used to be.
When the end finally comes, your body is still in motion.
Still scanning.
Still holding.
People expect you to fall apart immediately.
But often, you don’t.
Because you’ve already been grieving in increments.
It’s later…weeks, months, sometimes years…that it shows up differently.
A name outside a bathroom.
A song on the radio.
Light hitting a window in a familiar way.
These moments don’t announce themselves.
They just arrive.
And what you do with them…the story you allow yourself to tell…matters.
How We Survive Grief
You don’t get over grief.
You learn how to carry it.
Sometimes that means letting ordinary moments feel like connection instead of coincidence.
When you decide that a small moment means something — that it’s closeness, not randomness — you’re not being irrational.
You’re protecting your heart.
You’re giving love somewhere to go.
This is meaning-making.
It’s one of the ways we, human beings, survive unbearable loss.
You allow comfort in.
You let memory soften instead of stab.
You give yourself permission to feel steadied, even briefly.
Grief Changes Shape
Grief doesn’t end.
But it changes shape.
In the beginning, it’s sharp and constant, with every moment soaked in absence.
Later, it lives beside you instead of on top of you.
You think of them in quieter ways.
You carry them in gestures, in phrases, and in habits you didn’t realize you’d inherited.
And sometimes…not always, but sometimes, an ordinary moment feels like grace.
Not because it erases the loss.
But because it reminds you that love doesn’t stop when life does.
Weekly Resource
📘 Book Pick: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
A raw, unflinching exploration of grief after sudden loss.
Didion doesn’t offer neat answers.
She simply witnesses her own experience with honesty.
For caregivers navigating their own grief, it validates the contradictions, the irrational thoughts, and the deeply human need to make meaning from what cannot be explained.
Grief will find you in places you don’t expect.
You don’t have to prove that a moment meant something.
You don’t have to explain it away.
If it feels like connection, let it be connection.
Grief doesn’t disappear.
But sometimes, it loosens its grip.
With you,
Bryce
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