A Reflection on Grief and 525,600 Minutes

How do you cope with losing someone you love?

Photo by Marta Dzedyshko on Pexels.

Thirteen years ago today, I lost my Dad.

It was my first real experience with grief.

What is grief anyway?

It’s hard to explain it to someone who has never experienced it. Dictionary.com has a very corporate way of defining it: “keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss.”

Um, nope. That sounds like a crypto investment gone bad.

Let me offer up another definition…

…courtesy of Andrew Garfield when he was interviewed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. While talking about the passing of his mother, the actor said:

“Grief is all the unexpressed love (we have). I hope it stays with me forever.”

I couldn’t agree more.

It’s often said that grief is the price we pay for love.

The love with no place to go, so it shows up in the eyes, or the lump of the throat, or the big hole in the chest.

A few months ago, I was chatting with a friend when I told her, “I saw you at my Dad’s funeral. I’m so sorry I never got to thank you.” It was gratitude 13 years late.