Grief Changes Clothes, But It Never Leaves.

Grief doesn’t leave. It just changes clothes.

In the beginning, it’s unbearable. It takes the air out of the room and the ground out from under you. Early grief doesn’t ask permission—I didn't know what to do when grief descended on me. I remember trying to go to sleep at night and when I finally could fall asleep and wake up the next morning, I would stretch and think, "it's going to nice day." Then the realization of what had happened to my daughter, to me, to my family, and loved ones my stomach would drop, and the most terrible feeling would cover me. I would hear my little girls in the next room and knew I had to get up and be a mother to my little ones (they were only 10 and 4) but that feeling of sickness would not leave. It clung to me and I couldn't shake it.

Then as time passed, because it always does, grief changed. I remember pushing through it minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, then weeks, months and years. It was awful. I learned how grief seemed to just sit on top of me or beside me. It became something I had to learn how to carry instead of it carrying me. Some days it lurked in the background. Other days it showed up out of nowhere and reminded me it never actually went anywhere. Smells, songs, an empty place at the dinner table. We had a high-top table and my kids sat there with their little legs swinging under it. They were so cute and loving and happy, then all that was just gone. All of the life from before.

Grief isn’t just about death. It’s about everything that was lost. People. Relationships. Safety. Health. Dreams. All those things had been stolen away by violent crime, and it wasn't fair. Grief sat there and seemingly laughed at me. The life I thought I was going to have was gone. Grief always seemed to find me and I hated it. Still hate it. And it did not care how long it had been. Grief is the worst kind of demon.

Years later, you don’t get “get over it.” You have had to learn how to live with it, the bastard it is. I learned how to function while carrying something that never got lighter—I just had to get stronger in places I didn’t ask to grow. For a long time, smiling felt wrong. Laughing felt like betrayal. Like if I allowed myself to be okay, even for a moment, it meant that losing Andi mattered less. Grief, the devil it is lies like that.

Over time I had to learn I could miss what’s gone and still choose life, but it has taken years. I realized that I can still carry sorrow and still feel joy. One does not cancel out the other. Living again is not forgetting. It’s surviving. What choice do you have?

Grief changes you. It makes you more honest, more guarded, more compassionate, sometimes all at once. It leaves a mark you stop trying to explain.

So, I say this to anyone who is grieving: if you’re still hurting, there is nothing wrong with you. You didn’t grieve wrong. You didn’t fail at healing. You loved something real. And like grief love is stronger. Much stronger.

And over the years I now know that grief doesn’t leave. It just changes clothes. And if you’re still standing, that tells me everything I need to know about your strength and love. You will be okay, never the same, your heart will always be broken, but you're not broken you just loved hard.

Keep loving.

“The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart.”

— Psalm 34:18

“We are hard-pressed on every side yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair.”

— 2 Corinthians 4:8