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The Darkness of Grief: What No One Tells You

I remember the moment the officer showed up at my office and told me they had found my dad. I’ll never forget the position my body was facing, where I was standing, or how the light in the room felt. In an instant, my world went dark and I don’t remember anything after that. A darkness fell over me that no one can truly see or understand unless they've lived through something similar. My heart split in half and shattered to the floor like broken glass.


I don’t remember much of that year. I know I stopped caring; about what I ate, what I drank, what I lost. For the first time in my life, I felt completely powerless. Directionless. Numb. I can honestly say I didn’t care about anything else in my world.


It was dark. Lonely. And no matter how hard they tried, no one around me could truly understand.

One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned through grief is that it’s not about "waiting it out", not about traveling through a tunnel of darkness in hopes of reaching the light. For me, it felt like the candle that once lit up my world had burned out… and there was no replacing it. Grief isn't about finding a new light, it’s about learning how to live with one less.


People will say, “Time heals all wounds,” or “You just learn to live with it.” That’s bullshit. Time doesn’t heal anything, it just helps us hide the wound. It gets infected. We ignore it. We pretend it doesn’t hurt. We look away, thinking if we don’t acknowledge it, maybe it will stop hurting.

And sure, there’s some truth in learning to live with grief. But that doesn’t mean we have to dismiss it or act like the power has simply gone out in our entire universe.


Grief, when ignored, becomes something that haunts us. We stay angry. We chase answers that will never come. Grief hurts like hell. It almost breaks us. But it doesn’t have to be something we pretend didn’t happen.


People often say grief comes in waves or cycles, and it does, but it’s not some theme park ride you just “get through” and feel better afterward. No. It’s more like a rollercoaster you never get off. Some moments are calm and feel almost peaceful. Others are terrifying, heavy, and exhausting; like the ride will never end.


We have to learn to accept that our world is darker without that person. We have to learn to live in a universe that’s just a little dimmer. Because we’re not the same people we were when they were alive. We’ve changed. We love differently. We see the world differently. And our hearts… they will never be quite as whole.


But that doesn’t mean we’re broken, or that there will never be light again.

It just means we’re in pain and we don’t have to fear the darkness.


There’s a poem that says we always turn to the sunset, searching for the light, when really, we should be turning toward the darkness, because that’s where the rising sun begins.


That’s what I encourage you to do. Don’t run from the dark. Turn into it. Let the grief be there. Let it move through you.


Stop trying to change it, dismiss it, or simply “live with it.”


Feel what it’s asking you to feel.


And I promise you—this rollercoaster will get easier.


Not because time erases the pain or because we forget…

But because true healing only happens when we stop being afraid to understand the pain.

 
 
 

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