Somebody once told me grief has a shelf life of about a year. Get through the four seasons, they said, and you come out the other side. I look back at that statement now and think they couldn’t be more wrong because I remember about thirteen months after my daughter died, I fell apart in the cereal aisle because I was staring down the box of cereal I always bought for her. I stood there with a cart and tears running down my face, and a stranger asked if I was okay. I was not. I also was. Both things were true.

The Calendar Lied To You

There is no expiration date on missing someone. The idea that grief wraps up neatly in a year or some other bizarre amount of time is a thing we tell each other because the alternative is uncomfortable to sit near. People want grief to be a tunnel with a clear exit. It is more like weather. Some days are bright and fine. Then a front moves in with no warning, and you are soaked. Months after a death, your brain has finally stopped bracing for impact, which means the feelings you postponed during the casseroles and the paperwork finally hit your consciousness. Crying at month six, or month sixteen, is not regression. It is grief making room for a love that did not end when their life did. The Cleveland Clinic notes there is no standard timeline for grief and that waves can return long after the loss (Cleveland Clinic, n.d.). So if you are still crying, I say feel what you need to feel because when you allow yourself to really feel, you honor love with every breath.

Triggers Are Just Love With Bad Manners

What sets off late tears is almost never the big, expected stuff. It is the ambush. The grand occasions, the birthdays and the holidays, you see coming, so you armor up. It is the small things that get you. A voicemail you forgot to delete. The way someone three lanes over laughs exactly like she did. The smell of Victoria’s Secret body spray on a young girl who is casually walking by you at the mall. These are grief triggers, and they work because love stored itself in ordinary places. You did not file your person under a single sad folder. You scattered them across songs, perfumes, snacks, and the vision of them walking into your room. A trigger is just one of those hiding spots opening up when you least expect it. What's Your Grief describes triggers as cues, often sensory, that reconnect us to a loss in a flash (What's Your Grief, n.d.). The tears are not a malfunction. They are proof the love is still woven in the fabric of our hearts..

You Are Not Doing This Wrong

Crying months later does not mean you failed to heal, and I would argue that we don’t heal from grief; rather, we learn to walk with it. I think a lot of us secretly believe that ongoing tears are a report card and we are getting a D. We measure ourselves against the friend who seems composed, against the version of us we imagined we'd be by now. But here is the human reason underneath it. We do not cry because we are weak or stuck or doing grief incorrectly. We cry because we love someone enough that their absence changed the shape of our days. The American Psychological Association points out that grief is a natural response to loss, not a disorder to be hurried through (American Psychological Association, n.d.). I want to say this plainly so it sticks. Tears are not the problem. Tears are the bill that comes due for having a heart. Pay it without shame.

What To Do When The Wave Hits In Public

Stop fighting it, name it, give yourself one kind sentence. When a trigger ambushes you in the cereal aisle, the instinct is to swallow it down and get out before anyone sees. I have done the speed-walk to the car more times than I can count. But the harder you clamp down, the longer the feeling lingers, because it just waits for you in the parking lot. So when the wave comes, let your shoulders drop. Tell yourself what is happening, even just under your breath: this is grief, this is love, this is okay. Then find one small mercy. Put a hand on the cart. Breathe out longer than you breathe in. Let the stranger be kind to you if they offer. You do not owe anybody an explanation for missing someone. You are allowed to leak in the dairy section. You are allowed to be a person who still loves a person who is gone.

Next time the tears show up uninvited, try this one thing. Instead of asking what is wrong with me, ask what just reminded me of them. Follow that thread back to the memory. Most days it leads somewhere tender, and tender is allowed to make you cry.

Much love, Dena Betti.