When Grief Comes Again
Unexpected…Unwelcome…
That’s how grief enters my world.
Not once—but over and over again.
That is the work of loss.
There is no timetable. No expiration date. No finish line—at least not here in this world—for the ache and longing that mark grief’s presence.
And so often it comes when I least expect it.
A song I’ve heard a hundred times begins to play, and suddenly all I can hear is the sweet echo of a voice no longer beside me.
The smell of a favorite meal rises in the kitchen, and with it comes the quiet sting of remembering the Mom who cooked it best.
Beauty and pain, side by side.
And in that space, I find myself once again entering the valley I had hoped to leave behind—the valley of the shadow. But loss is not a place we pass through quickly. It is a process. A journey. It cannot be rushed, and there are no shortcuts.
Over time, I’ve come to recognize three realms of loss:
the loss of what was,
the loss of what could have been,
and the loss of what will never be.
There is the loss of what was.
I will forever miss Sunday night suppers at Mama’s house. The house that feels too quiet now still holds a treasury of laughter and love. I miss Elvis sing-alongs in my car, “Hello Darling” playing softly while the sunlight danced in her smile.
The memories are good.
But I miss her.
Then there is the loss of what could have been.
This one is harder. Almost like grief, part two.
It carries regret. And regret can spiral into endless cycles of self-blame—and sometimes even anger toward God. This is the “why” stage for me.
Why didn’t I take her shopping more often?
Why didn’t I linger longer?
How could I have been anywhere but at her side when she slipped into eternity?
Why?
But there is no going back. Only forward.
And that leads me to the final realm: the loss of what will never be.
There will be an empty seat at her grandchildren’s weddings.
The arms that would have held new babies in our family will never cradle them—not in our sight, anyway.
The loss of what will never be is, at its core, the slow work of letting go.
Here we are forced to loosen our grip on what was, and release the exhausting ache of what could have been. We cannot live in a “what if” world. We must keep walking.
My loved one died, yet I am alive.
She has reached Home, and I am still traveling.
Her pain is finished, her healing complete—yet my heart is still healing. And I am not there yet.
But I serve the very same Savior who welcomed her with open arms.
The One who healed her will, in His time, heal me.
The One who gathers broken pieces and creates something beautiful from them.
And there are glimmers—small rays of light that remind me He is holding me.
The tears still fall. And that’s okay. Tears cleanse. They soften.
Now, when I see the pain in others walking this road, I understand. I love differently—a softer, deeper kind of love.
His love.
After all, I hurt because I loved.
And love—even when it carries loss—is still a gift.
One I will open again and again.
.