We Are All Grievers

Most of us learn about grief the same way. Someone dies, and suddenly there is a word for what we feel. There are rituals, casseroles, cards. People lower their voices. For a little while, the world makes room.

And then, slowly, the room closes. The cards stop coming. People go back to their lives, and we're expected to go back to ours.

But grief doesn't only arrive with death. It shows up when a relationship ends, when a career we built no longer fits, when we realize the childhood we needed isn't the one we had. It shows up when a friendship quietly fades, or when a dream we carried for years has to be set down. It shows up in the quiet moments when life turns out differently than we pictured.

These losses rarely come with casseroles. There's no card for them, no time off work, no one asking how we're holding up. So often, we don't call them grief at all.

In my work, I meet so many people who don't think they're allowed to call what they're carrying grief. They come in feeling stuck, anxious, or somehow broken. They apologize for crying. They tell me other people have it worse. And often, underneath all of it, there's a loss that has never been named.

I believe grief belongs to all of us. It's part of being human, not a sign that something has gone wrong. When we treat it as a problem to fix, we end up carrying it alone, and we start to believe the pain itself is proof that we're failing. When we can name it, something softens. The loss doesn't get smaller, but we stop fighting ourselves for feeling it.

The dark times

This season has a way of making every loss a little louder. Thanksgiving, the darker evenings, the run-up to the holidays: all of it can press on the places where someone or something is missing.

For me, it's my mom, and all the memories we should be making.

I've been known to call December through March "the dark times." It's an easy thing to say out loud, because here in Calgary we all know those months are long and cold. But for me, it means more than shorter days. Her birthday is at the end of November, and the anniversary of her death is at the beginning of March. For the last seven years, this has been a personally dark season.

I sit with others in the complexity of their grief as I try to sit with my own. Layers upon layers of grief live in my body. Every new version of me brings new grief with it, and like most people, I want to grow into a better version of myself every day. So you can do the math.

I know the tightness in your throat when the devastation lands again: she is actually gone. I know the swallowing of it. And I know the sharp sting of shame that follows, for still feeling this deeply after seven years.

What I'm learning is to notice that shame as it happens. To sit in the discomfort instead of running from it. And to truly believe that I deserve to witness all of my grief, because all of it echoes so much love.

I'm not sharing this because my grief is bigger or more important than yours. I'm sharing it because I don't want to pretend I'm on the other side of something I'm still walking through. I'm a therapist, and I'm a griever. Both are true.

What I'll be writing about

So for the next few months, I'll be writing here about grief and the holidays. About the empty chairs at the table. About complicated families, and missing people who are still alive. About the losses no one sends flowers for. About birthdays and anniversaries that arrive whether we're ready or not. And about how we might hold all of it with a little more gentleness.

These letters are for you even if no one in your life has died. Your grief doesn't need to be recent, or big enough, or tidy. If something in your life has changed and part of you still aches for what was, or for what never got to be, you're welcome here.

For this week

You don't need to do anything with this letter. But if you'd like, notice what feels a little heavier lately. The evenings, a certain song, a date on the calendar. Then gently ask: is there something underneath this I haven't let myself call grief?

You don't need to answer out loud, or to anyone. Just let the question sit beside you for a while. Naming it, even quietly, is often where the softening begins.

If you're carrying something heavy right now, I hope these letters feel like company.

We are all grievers. Maybe that's where we can begin.

With care,
Amie

I'm Amie Nelson, MSW, RSW, a grief and trauma therapist at Two Rivers Therapy in Calgary, seeing clients in person and online across Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia. If you'd like support, you can book a free 20-minute consultation at tworiverstherapy.ca. These letters are reflections, not therapy. If you're in crisis, call or text 9-8-8.