The biggest lie they tell you about grief

Sorry, but it does not get better 😔

The biggest lie people tell about grief is that it will eventually get better.

I’m here to tell you, it does not.

Although I *totally* understand why people say this.

Because if they told you the truth—that it doesn’t get easier or go away; it just sits heavily on your chest and every day you feel like you’re about one Joni Mitchell guitar chord away from completely losing your shit—then you’d never get out of bed again.

It’s a lie we have to tell ourselves just so we can function…you know, keep grocery shopping and taking showers and all that.

Illustration by the @theprairievole

I lost my mom 4 years ago today and the grief does not feel any lighter. If anything, it feels heavier. Stronger. Darker. The injustice of her diagnosis and the indignity with which she was ripped away from us still haunts me. If I think too hard or too long about everything she’s missed, I start to spiral. What’s the point of *any of this* if my mom isn’t here to see it and share in it?

A lot of people have coMpLicaTeD relationships with their moms. But I didn’t. Mine was really simple. She was the sun. She made everything warm.

It reminds me of a griefy Jessmyn Ward passage I love:

“There's too much blank sky where a tree once stood.”

I’m mixing metaphors, but whatever. My mom would still think this was all brilliant writing because she thought everything Becca and I did was brilliant. She brought flowers to orchestra performances in which I was VERY mediocre. No solo. No special part. Just me, under-rehearsed and winging it, sitting two or three rows deep in the Second Violin section. And her, cheering so loudly I could hear her in the dark otherwise-anonymous audience, waiting for me at the end with a big smile and bouquet of flowers. She was always waiting in the wings or the bleachers, cheering on my mediocrity.

I think about this *all* the time

Mom, I hate that no one else is you. How there is no replacement or medicine for this grief. No understudy or backup mom on standby. Nothing feels the same. Everything is just a little bit grayer. A little bit worse.

I wish you could meet Pippa and see the girls together. Tell me which parts remind you of Becca and me. Recite the same stories again and again.

I wish I could call you after a hard day and you could tell me I’m doing a great job and I’m not irrevocably fucking up the girls or my life. That I’m smart and beautiful and creative and enough. I wish my final memories of you weren’t so strong and didn’t poison the millions of beautiful ones. I’d love to solely focus on the illustrations you drew on goody bags (aka brown paper bags) for our birthday parties. The size of your smile when you’d pick me up me after school.

Sometimes I’ll see an older woman in the grocery store hunching her shoulders ever so slightly and I’ll start to cry. I’ll see a grandmother with her granddaughter sharing a muffin at Starbucks and need to leave. Life looks and feels so different now. I’m nostalgic every day for how things used to be and furious over what I feel robbed of. Your death feels like a personal attack.

It’s a confusing and emotionally fraught balancing act, that I fail at every tenth attempt. I’m always looking for ways to stay busy, honor my feelings, practice gratitude, and also push myself out of the darker spirals when necessary (I went to see Kyle Mooney’s comedy show on Monday night with friends and my face still hurts from laughing). But I cannot figure out that magical combination in a sustainable way.

If you’re in the midst of grieving your parent, sibling, spouse, partner, BFF…then I’m so sorry. And if you’ve been spared this particular flavor of heartbreak (so far), then that’s wonderful.

I’m no expert by any means, but here’s an article I wrote with tips for both people who are grieving and for those who want to support their friends or loved ones who are:

As for me, I’m honoring my mama today in small ways. I’ll listen to a playlist of songs that remind me of her. I’ll probably grab a coffee and order some art supplies. I’ll text my sister and my dad and anyone else who is missing her extra hard today. Because really, what else can I do? I mean, today is hard. But so is every day without her.