Grief Isn’t an Ikea Desk
Learning how to grieve isn’t like putting together an Ikea desk, though wouldn’t that be nice? A manual. A diagram. A clean, minimalist photo of what life is supposed to look like once everything’s been “assembled” properly. Step A connects to Part B, tighten with Hex Key C, and voilà: a fully constructed version of closure.
But grief?
Grief laughs in the face of tidy.
Grief takes the manual, lights it on fire, and hands you a blank page instead.
Because grieving someone you love doesn’t follow a one-size-fits-all model. It’s not linear, logical, or efficient. It’s more like one of those old-school “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, except you didn’t choose this story. You’re not sure you even want to keep reading. But here you are on page 47, trying to decide what to do next.
And at each bend in the road, you’re met with choices:
Do I walk into the dark forest of memory, not knowing what I’ll find there?
Do I brave the stormy seas of anger, guilt, or longing?
Or do I freeze, numb, paralyzed, unable to even imagine taking another step?
This is the real work of grief, not bypassing the pain, not rushing to the part where you’re “better,” but learning how to be. Really be. In the ache. In the missing. In the after.
It’s sitting in the quiet room of your own heart and learning how to breathe through the silence.
It’s surfing the five stages of grief with as much consciousness as you can muster.
Denial? That freezing, disorienting wave that knocks the wind out of you.
Anger? The boiling sea that churns under your skin.
Bargaining? The chaotic, swirling current of “what if” and “if only.”
Depression? The heavy, still waters of the Dead Sea, where nothing seems to move.
And every now and then, when the waves soften, you get to Acceptance. That calm, expansive sea. The one that doesn’t erase the pain but holds it with compassion.
Grieving, at its core, is about coexisting: continuing forward even as your heart is looking back. Even as it’s calling out behind you: Did you see what I lost? Did you see who I loved?
And maybe that’s the thing. Grief belongs to the heart. It always has.
We don’t grieve what we didn’t love.
We grieve because we loved deeply, irrationally, imperfectly, wholly.
Grief is the twin flame of love. The other side of the coin. The echo that remains when love has no place to land.
That’s why grief doesn’t live only in the tears or the anniversaries. It shows up everywhere in the grocery store, when you see their favorite snack. In the song that randomly plays. In your kid’s laugh. In the mundane moments that suddenly feel not so mundane.
So the question isn’t how to “get over” grief. It’s how to let it live alongside you.
How to let it move through your mornings, your errands, your laughter, your disappointments.
How to let it soften, not harden, your heart.
The how of grieving is this:
It’s hunkering down in your heart when the sadness hits, instead of fleeing it.
It’s choosing to live a vibrant, courageous life while still carrying the ache of missing someone.
It’s forgiving yourself for what you didn’t say and forgiving them for what they couldn’t do.
It’s knowing that unresolved wounds don’t erase the realness of the love.
It’s allowing presence to guide you because there is no map. No “after” picture. Only breath. Only the next moment.
And maybe that’s the closest thing we get to a manual after all.