Image by author, Door County, WI

We Need Better Metaphors for Grief.

I appreciate all the supportive messages, but I have one request:

⚱️Content warning: grief. There was a recent and unexpected loss in my circle of friends and family. The long term effects will be with me forever. But when I am writing deliberately through the lens of grief, I will let you know with this urn call-out so you can skip if needed.

Please stop telling me that grief is like a wave.

I hear it over and over. “Remember, the feelings are going to come in a wave, no telling when, or where.”

I’m learning, the hard way, that it is untrue. People see waves coming all the time. A wave is something you can ride on for fun, and when you’re done, you can leave the waves where they are waving and walk away.

A wave is a friendly greeting between friends or strangers, showing that you mean no harm because there’s nothing in your hands that can hurt them.

A wave is a neutral way to describe one of the two observable behaviors of a photon.

Grief is not any of those things.

Instead, why didn’t you tell me about the Griefhammer?

You know, the sudden, overwhelming crushing feeling of loss that leaves me broken…