12/08/2026
Grief is an ocean.
In the beginning, it can feel wild and unforgiving. It pulls you under without warning, turns you around until you no longer know which way is up, then throws you back to the surface, exhausted and gasping for air. Just when you think you have found your footing, another wave arrives and carries you away again. There is no rhythm to it, no timetable, and no way of knowing when the next wave will come.
But with time, the ocean begins to change. There are moments when the water becomes calm and still, when you realise you can float again. Slowly, you learn how to breathe in this new world. You discover strength you didn't know you had and begin to find pieces of yourself among everything that has changed. The grief hasn't disappeared; you have simply learned how to carry it, how to move with the water instead of always fighting against it.
Then, sometimes without warning another wave comes. A song, a photograph, a familiar place, a memory, an anniversary or perhaps nothing you can name at all and suddenly the water rises around you again. It can feel as though you are right back where you started. But you aren't. You know this ocean now. You know the wave will eventually pass, and you know that somewhere beyond it there will be calmer water again.
Perhaps that is one of the hardest truths about grief: the waves never completely stop coming.
We don't simply "get over" the people we have loved deeply. Their absence becomes woven into who we are, just as their love remains woven into us. Over time, the waves may become gentler and farther apart, but when they return, we allow ourselves to feel them.
And so we keep floating. We breathe when we can, rest when the water is calm and hold on when the waves are high. We learn that strength isn't about never being pulled under again. Sometimes strength is simply knowing that, when the wave comes, we will eventually rise to the surface, take another breath and keep going.
