Tamsen Fadal

I even think about it in the context of my brother, like never meeting my little nephew or my brother's wife.

And it's mind boggling the years that have gone by without her.

I've been thinking a lot recently about what I actually know and have learned after 35 years of carrying this.

So what's helped, what I wish somebody had told me earlier.

The first thing is that grief doesn't move in this straight line and nobody should tell you it does.

I thought it was supposed to go in those stages of grief, like this to this, to this, to this.

And then you're going to be here and then you're going to feel this and you're going to come out the other side and then you're going to move on.

But it doesn't work like that.

One day I will be in a grocery store even now and a song will come on and it will undo things like all these years later.

And I'll think, what is going on?

What is going on with me?

I already, I already got through that.

I already went through that.

Nothing is wrong with me.

Nothing is wrong with you.

Grief moves more like an ocean than it does a calendar.

It ebbs and flows.

It can go real calm and quiet for stretches.

And then a wave comes and knocks you out flat.

It's not a sign you're not healing.