Everyone's Grief Story is as Unique as They Are - Here's Mine

I was 30 years old when my beloved father died. It wasn't totally unexpected, he'd been living on borrowed time for 16 years, but it still happened in a way that left me reeling. I had no chance to say goodbye, to ask him all the questions I wanted to ask, or to tell him that I loved him.

At the time, I had two young children, aged one and nearly three, and my marriage was already on the rocks. I had no time or space to grieve. I was the only one able to make the vital phone calls immediately after his death, and I just kept going because I had to.

I fell apart at his funeral. The car I was in arrived at the crematorium before the hearse, so we pulled over to wait. As the hearse went past, I felt an enormous weight on my chest. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't even sob. That feeling stayed with me for years, and even now, tears form in my eyes when I remember it.

It wasn't until a few years later, after I had divorced and gone through a series of unsatisfactory relationships, that I sort counselling. It was during this time that my counsellor and I realised I had never truly grieved for my father. In many ways, I am still grieving, but the pain is softer now. It no longer takes my breath away.

I also came to understand that I wasn't just grieving the loss of my father. I was grieving the end of my marriage, the life I once knew, and the future I thought I would have.

Grief is never just one thing. It weaves its way into different parts of our lives, and it changes us. And while my story is mine alone, I know I'm not the only one learning to live with the spaces left behind.

Grief is love with nowhere to go.

It bends us, remakes us, teaches us the language of loss and the quiet courage of carrying on.

If you are in its grip, take heart, somewhere, someone else is too, and between us, the silence is a little less heavy.