Grief is weighty, dense, and awkward like an overstuffed suitcase you drag around without wheels. Every corner you turn bumps into it. Inside the bag is every memory, every unfinished sentence, every “one more day” you didn’t get. Intellectually you know you can’t set it down, but emotionally you keep trying. Yet, occasionally, the bag splits open, and something you never packed tumbles out… a sudden laugh. It arrives uninvited, irreverent, yet somehow perfectly timed.

At first, I imagined that sorrow and joy had to occupy separate rooms with permanently locked doors. But in reality, they share a thin wall. Laughter in grief isn't denial. Think of it as the soul’s ventilation system, equalizing the pressure. Scripture itself hints at the dual occupancy of these emotions: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,” suggesting that joy doesn’t cancel the tears, but it can lighten a heavy load.

A man, burying his father, doubles over at the funeral when the pastor mispronounces “dust to dust” as “dust to donuts.” The congregation roars, the family freaks out, but afterward feels less crushed because apparently Dad still had a way of bringing sprinkles into everything. 

My son was wearing a ball cap as we hiked an Arizona canyon, so I remarked, “Put on your brimmed hat so the top of your ears don’t get sunburned.” I laughed out loud when I saw the photo of him wearing the brimmed hat on top of his ball cap with a big grin on his face. 

These aren’t betrayals of love; they’re testimonies of love strong enough to hold the paradox of tears and laughter.

Maybe it’s time to reminisce on purpose. Gather friends and spend ten minutes trading your beloved’s eccentricities. From Uncle Larry’s secret stash of airplane peanuts to Grandma’s habit of hiding those pink wintergreen candies and then putting out an APB because she couldn’t remember where she tucked them away. Set a timer for three minutes: first, everyone tells their saddest memory. Next three minutes, the funniest.  

May your tears water a garden where laughter blooms brilliant, even if it’s brief. May every giggling fit be a whisper from the One who holds your beloved, reminding you that your hearts remain tethered, even across the unseen border. And may you walk on, bag in hand, knowing the suitcase is lighter when you let humor leak out.

Because the day will come—and it always does—when the tears, unashamed, beg for a little laughter.

You know the feeling. The barista hands you a frothy latte instead of the iced mocha you ordered. Someone cuts you off on the freeway. Your friend texts “You should really get out more.”

Suddenly, you’re angry. Not because of the drink or the driver or the advice, but because grief has ambushed you once again, this time turning you into a live wire, sparking at the slightest touch. I’ve been there more than once.

The Monk’s Realization (And Mine)

There’s a story about a monk meditating on a lake when another boat rams into his. Eyes still closed, he feels his fury rise. How dare they disrupt my peace! When he opens his eyes, he sees the boat is empty. No boatman. No malice. Just wind and waves.

You see, the anger wasn’t in the boat. It was in him, waiting to be ignited. Grief works the same way.

Why Loss Turns Us Into Tinderboxes

• The Empty Boat is the insensitive coworker who thinks you should be "over it" by now.
• The Anchor is your loved one’s death, immovable and heavy.
• The Ripple is every minor annoyance that suddenly isn’t minor.

We blame the boats - the thoughtless comments, the world moving on. But the truth is simpler and harder: the rage was already there. It just needed a bump. Like the time I snapped at a thoughtless shopper who was taking up the whole aisle in the grocery store with her cart. And then ignored me when I said, “Excuse me.” How dare she be so oblivious? I ended up sobbing in the parking lot. Or when I’d scribble rage-written letters to my son at 3 AM, my words splattering like the coffee I’ll never be able to share with him.

What The Monk's Story Taught Me

1. Name the Storm – I’m not angry at the barista. I’m angry because my son isn’t here to drink this coffee. 

2. Drop the Anchor – Scream into a pillow. Journal until your pen rips the page if you have to. The anger doesn’t need a target; it just needs to get out.

3. Row Toward Quiet – When the fury subsides, ask: "What’s under this?" (Hint: It’s always love. Love with nowhere to go).

The boats will keep coming. But you, like the monk, can learn to see them for what they are: not attacks, but mirrors. Turns out, grief’s anger isn’t about the boat. It’s about who's no longer in yours.

Perfectionists don’t believe in weeds. My husband certainly didn’t. When a tiny green sprout pushed through our Arizona desert crushed granite landscaping, he grabbed his gloves, mumbling, “This weed has to go.”

But something about it clawing through three inches of rock made me stop him.

“Wait, let’s give it a week and see what happens.”

“OK, fine.”

As it turned out, that “weed” was a Chilean Mesquite tree. Within a year, it was eighteen feet tall, providing shade in an otherwise hot and sunny corner of our back yard. I called it the Volunteer. 

One morning I saw him watering it at dawn and said, “You’re the best, honey.”

“Just keeping it alive.” But I noticed his fingers lightly brushed the bark almost like an apology for wanting to take it out.

Grief works the same way. It starts as small, jarring moments that catch you off guard. Maybe you set the table and realize you didn't automatically reach for their plate. Maybe you glance at the clock and discover the hour they died has come and gone without you noticing. These aren’t coincidence. They’re real, measurable shifts in your daily patterns. They’re the first signs that something new is growing in the space that loss left behind.

We strung lights on the Volunteer and very evening at sunset we sat under it, clinking our iced tea glasses. A small ritual of gratitude that something good had taken root in the dirt.

That tree is still standing. It didn’t just survive the desert heat; it grew through it. And in the years since, I’ve come to think that’s what healing is. Not forgetting. Not moving on. But allowing the right thing to grow where it’s planted.

Even though my husband has passed and I don’t live there anymore, I still catch myself thinking of that tree and I swear I can almost hear him: a low mumble, and underneath it, his familiar grin.

Grief hits everyone differently. It’s personal. It’s messy. I’ve been there.

But here’s what I’ve figured out: grief is about how you see things (perception) and how you make sense of them (perspective).

Perception is how you take in the world—what you see, hear, and feel. When you’re grieving, everything feels off. Colors seem dull. Laughter feels wrong. A favorite place might suddenly feel empty. Your brain’s scrambled, and the world doesn’t look the same.

On the flip side, perspective is how you think about what’s happened. Some people find meaning in loss. They grow from it. Others get stuck in anger or guilt. It all depends on your beliefs, where you are on your journey, and how you’re wired.

Not long after my husband died, a friend texted me this quote, “Grief is just love with nowhere to go,” I hated that. It felt trite; too easy. 

Then, one day while doing the dishes, I caught myself humming hubby’s favorite Nat King Cole song, “The Very Thought of You.” It was the song he sang to me at our wedding. For a second, it wasn’t sadness, it was just... him. That’s when I recognized that love doesn’t leave; it just changes shape. That’s perception.

After my son died, I’d take side streets to avoid the place where he worked. I didn’t want to see his empty parking space. Then, one rainy afternoon I didn’t avoid it. I pulled right in. No orange and gray truck with a camper shell—the one he said he was going to paint. No broken handle hanging from the shell’s door, the one he’d always threatened to “fix next weekend.” Just wet asphalt and the kind of quiet that makes your ears ring. 

A year later I stood in that same spot, tracing the oil stains with my shoe and let myself imagine they were from his truck. I smiled. That’s perspective… stealing back the memory so it couldn’t steal me first. 

When we’re grieving, our nervous system takes the biggest hit.  It's in a constant state of internal “fight or flight” that leaves us feeling frayed and exhausted. We search for solutions to find peace, but sometimes the most profound relief costs nothing.

It's the vibration we can make with our own body… humming. It may sound strange, but it’s far more than a simple vocal exercise; it’s more like an internal massage for your parasympathetic nervous system.

Picture your nervous system as a stringed instrument. Over time, the stress of life, and especially the weight of loss makes the strings get out of tune. 

When you hum, you create a gentle, steady frequency that ripples through your chest and throat. These physical vibrations provide a sensory “anchor.” By stimulating the Vagus nerve, which acts as the major highway connecting your brain to your body, you're essentially sending an important signal to your internal landscape that it’s safe to shift from “survival mode” into “rest and digest.”

It’s a quiet, rhythmic feedback loop that works like this:

VIBRATION/SELF-SOOTHING: The humming creates steady vibration and sound that many people find regulating, like giving the body a predictable rhythm when emotions feel intense.

REGULATION: That rhythm often encourages slower breathing and longer, steadier exhalations, which can shift the body toward a calmer, more regulated state.

CLARITY: When the nervous system feels less on alert, it can be easier to focus, process what’s happening, and carry grief with a bit more steadiness over time.

What I like about this is it's easy to do:

Close your eyes, take a slow breath in, and then hum a steady, low “mmm” as you exhale. Pay attention to the vibration, especially around your lips and chest. Continue for as long as it feels comfortable. You can use it as a gentle transition between journaling sessions, after a hard moment, or at the end of the day. I do it in the morning before getting out of bed and several times throughout the day because it helps me feel better. 

While processing loss, we often feel disconnected from our bodies. Humming can be a no-stress, gentle way to reconnect. The steady vibration and sound help your body to shift from intense alarm toward regulation. Even in the midst of sorrow, it can remind your system that moments of rhythm and rest are still possible.

Everyone has 24 hours in a day. But for someone who's grieving, those 24 hours can feel surreal. How do I even begin to explain this? It's like living in a parallel universe where time doesn't follow the same rules. Sometimes the minutes and hours seem to stretch on forever, while other times they slip through your fingers like sand.

I remember those first few days after losing my husband and then, two years later, my son. Each second felt like an eternity, yet the days blurred together in a haze of death certificates, burial arrangements, banking, insurance, pain, fear, and confusion. 

Maybe you, too, have felt this roller coaster of emotions. One minute, you find yourself laughing at a funny memory, and the next, you're overwhelmed by a wave of sadness that threatens to pull you under.

Sometimes I feel guilty for having moments of joy or laughter. But then I remind myself that it's okay to feel the full range of emotions. I've learned that grief isn't linear. It’s more like a messy, tangled ball of yarn.

The thing is, when you're grieving, your 24 hours aren't just about going through the motions of daily life. They're about learning to navigate your new reality. One where the physical framework of a cherished relationship has vanished.

Gone are the days when I would drive by where my son worked and smile when I saw his truck parked in his favorite spot. For a while, I avoided that place altogether. 

And I never realized just how much of my daily routine revolved around my husband until he was gone. Now, every task is a reminder of his absence, and I have to recognize, honor, and move through each one of these 'secondary' losses. Things like different cooking habits, taking care of the yard, car maintenance, and trips to Home Depot for faucet aerators and furnace filters. And the day I finally had to remove his LinkedIn profile because I was overwhelmed, trying to keep up with all of the emails, informing his connections that he had passed away. 

So, what can you do with your 24 hours when you're grieving? The answer is simple: prioritize whatever you need to do to heal.

Some days, that might mean curling up in your bed and sobbing. Other days, it means getting out of the house, going for a walk or taking yourself out to lunch. There's no right or wrong approach to grief. Give yourself permission to do it your way. Be patient, be kind to yourself, and most importantly, be present.

Grief may change the way we experience time, but, as I've learned, it doesn’t have to define our entire existence. We’ll keep taking it one day, one hour, one moment at a time. After all, what else can we do?

Someone once said that a home isn’t just four walls and a roof; it’s two eyes and a heartbeat. When that’s gone, only silence remains. 

The silence began for me after my husband died. Just 30 days after that, our dog died. And then… two years later, my adult son died. Through all that, I learned that it’s not the kind of silence you can fill with music, TV, social media scrolling, or other people. It feels thick. The kind that settles into corners like dust, that makes your walk down the hallway feel longer. It turns the sound of your own footsteps into something almost intrusive.

Before your loss, silence probably felt restful. It was a pause between conversations, a lull before the next laugh. Now it’s a presence that carries weight. It follows you from room to room, sitting down across from you at the dinner table. Lying next to you in bed.

You notice the small absences most. Their key in the lock that no longer turns. A voice calling your name from another room. The shuffle of slippers on hardwood. The click of a dog’s nails on the kitchen floor. The house remembers those sounds. It played them back to you at first, in those early weeks, when you’d swear you heard something. 

There’s no solution to this silence. You can’t drown it out, because it’s not a sound. It’s a shape left behind by everything that used to fill it. But maybe you don’t have to fight it. Maybe you can learn to sit inside it, not as in a vacuum, but as a kind of presence itself. Not the presence of what’s gone, but the residue of love that once moved through those rooms.

The silence isn’t really empty. It’s full of everything that can’t be said anymore. The specific sounds of a home that you won't hear anymore—the key in the lock, the voice calling your name, the padding of feet on the floor. It’s full of that kind of absence which is its own kind of heaviness.

But heaviness, carried long enough, can become familiar. Almost like a companion. It settles next to you, not as an intruder, but as a quiet witness to the love that was real. It doesn’t mean the pain goes away. It just means you learn to breathe in the rooms where the air has changed.

You learn that the silence itself is more of a presence. And you learn to move within it, not because it isn’t heavy, but because you’ve stopped fighting its weight. That's when you know you’re beginning to live alongside it.

There’s a kind of tiredness that doesn’t come from running a marathon or sleepless nights. It’s quieter than that. Sneakier. It shows up as a heaviness behind your eyes, a knot in your gut, a bone-deep weariness that sleep doesn’t fix. It’s the exhaustion that comes from trying to be good enough at everything, all the time.

If you’re grieving, you know this tiredness well. Yet, you’re still showing up. You’re still answering emails, feeding the kids, showing up for friends, keeping the house from falling apart. You’re still performing "OK." But inside, your engine is running on fumes.

What It Looks Like When You’re Always “On”

In our culture, we’re told that “good enough” should be enough. But we live like it’s not. We strive to be:

• A competent employee who never drops the ball.
• A present friend who remembers birthdays and listens well.
• A reliable family member who doesn’t fall apart.
• A put-together person who looks like they have their life handled.

And when you’re grieving, that list gets even heavier. Now you’re also trying to:

• Process waves of grief without letting them derail your day.
• Answer “How are you?” with something that won’t make people uncomfortable.
• Keep a brave face when you feel like crumbling.

That’s the quiet exhaustion: the effort of pretending you’re fine when you’re not.

Why This Kind of Tiredness Goes Unseen

This kind of tiredness is quiet because it’s invisible. Most people won’t notice that you’re running on empty. You’ve gotten good at smiling, at nodding, at saying “I’m okay” in a tone that sounds convincing. So, no one offers help, because no one sees how much you’re carrying.

And part of you might believe that if you just keep trying hard enough, if you just push through, the exhaustion will lift someday. But grief doesn’t work like that. Neither does constant striving.

The Grief Layer

For someone who’s grieving, this exhaustion has an extra story. You’re not just managing life—you’re managing loss. Every phone call, every morning routine, every interaction takes more energy than it used to. Your bandwidth is smaller, but the world still expects the same output from you.

It looks like:

• Forgetting simple things: where you put the keys or what you walked into the kitchen for.
• Feeling numb or disconnected during conversations.
• A short fuse or a flat response. Either way, you don’t feel like yourself.
• Waking up tired after a full night’s sleep.
• Dreading even small social or professional obligations.
• Resenting people who don’t seem to understand why you can’t just “pull yourself together.”

That resentment? It's usually just sadness in disguise. You want to be seen. You want someone to say, “Hey, I know you’re not okay, but you still matter.”

A Gentle Reminder

You don’t have to be excellent at everything while you’re grieving. In fact, you don’t have to be excellent at anything for a while. Survival is a full-time job. The quiet exhaustion is a signal, not a failure. It’s your body and soul telling you, "You're carrying too much. Put something down."

Maybe that means letting the laundry pile up. Maybe it means saying “I can’t do this today” and meaning it. Maybe it means letting someone see you cry and not trying to hide it.

You’re not weak for being tired. You’re human. And the weight you’re carrying—loss, plus the pressure to be “good enough” on top of it—is heavier than most people know.

Let this be your permission: you don’t have to be good enough today. You just have to be here. And that is enough.