Grief isn’t just death. It’s life.
Society acts as though grief belongs to funerals. To death. To black clothes and flowers in vases and casseroles left at your door.
And yes, that’s grief. That’s the kind of grief the world makes space for. The kind of grief that everyone understands.
But what society does not acknowledge: Grief doesn’t just come when someone you love is gone. It shows up in a thousand other ways, ways we don’t name, ways we don’t understand, ways we dismiss, ways we shame ourselves for feeling.
It shows up when your friend moves away, even though it’s a great move for them.
When you pack up a place you loved, even when it’s for a better one.
When you walk away from a friendship that isn’t your vibe anymore, and you know it’s the right decision, but you still feel like something inside you has been torn out.
When you graduate … from anything.
When the baby finally sleeps through the night, and you rejoice, but you also grieve the newborn smell, the weight of their tiny body pressed against your chest in 3am silence.
When the kids outgrow their tiny shoes, their bedtime stories, their belief that you are the center of their universe, their name for you as momma or mommy or dadda or daddy.
When the kids go back to school after the sweet sounds of their voices all summer long.
When your kids’ voices are deep and husky, and you realize they sound like real grown-up adults, and that tiny voice you knew for years is now simply and forever gone.
When you land the new job, the one you fought soooo hard for, and you celebrate, but you also grieve the coworkers and comfort you left behind.
When you fall in love again, and you feel alive, but you also grieve the old version of you, the single one, that version of you who belonged to only you.
When one year ends and another begins, and even when a season ends and another begins.
When you see someone you care for evolving or devolving; good or bad, they’re not who they were.
When you notice yourself evolving or devolving; good or bad, you’re not who you used to be.
When another birthday comes, and you feel the weight of yet another decade slipping behind you.
This is all grief.
We rarely (never?) honor it.
But you have the right to feel it. To name it grief. And honor it.
But most of the time you don’t. You tell yourself you’re being dramatic. You dismiss your own losses because they don’t come with obituaries. You push it down, carry on, call it stress, or worse yet, pretend it doesn’t matter.
But it does matter!
It always matters.
Grief is real.
And it’s a day-in-day-out part of life.
Grief is what happens every time life changes, whether it changes in ways that hurt you or in ways you’ve longed for. Because even the good changes carry loss.
You don’t always recognize this as grief. Sometimes it feels like nostalgia, sometimes like an entirely different emotion altogether (cue random sadness or anger). But it is grief. Every ending is a kind of death, even though it always leads to a new beginning.
Grief doesn’t care whether the change was good or bad, whether you wanted it or resisted it.
It still demands to be felt (just like every feeling). And (just like every feeling), if you ignore it, it doesn’t disappear … It finds its way out through bottled-up anxiety or anger or depression, or all the above.
But you don’t have to prove your loss or change is big enough to deserve mourning.
If it mattered to you, it matters.
Full stop.
So when you feel it rising, those times when your chest tightens as you put away outgrown clothes, you tear up in the car after leaving a friend’s driveway for the last time, you stare at a calendar and realize another season is gone, your birthday approaches and you don’t know why you feel so depressed …
Don’t run from it.
Don’t minimize it.
Name it.
Sit with it.
Honor it.
This is grief.
Grief is proof you live.
Grief is proof you love.
Grief is proof you let yourself be moved by this fleeting, beautiful thing called life.
And that is honorable.
So grieve.
For the big things and the small.
For what’s gone forever and for what’s simply different now.
Grieve, and know this: That feeling is real, and it’s a reminder that you are very much alive.
Anitra Lahiri, ERYT-500, is a professionally trained end-of-life doula, and she offers grief support via her doula offerings. For grief support, email her at anitra@kyajaiyoga.com. (This Yoga Alliance profile lists Anitra’s verified yoga certifications and training.)
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Anitra Lahiri 