Not many speak of the effects after the initial shock, after the initial milestones, anniversaries, the laying of reflective sentiments at the tomb of the day that everything changed. What about three years later on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. What then?

Because it’s been a few years and I’m still here with an umbrella in hand and rain boots ready on this sunny afternoon on a Tuesday while the rest of the world is in sunglasses and sandals. I’m ready for rain yet basking in the warmth of day. A juxtaposition.

This hidden grief doesn’t quite fit into the flow of life, especially years later when the world has moved on but you haven’t. We catch up on life and I laugh right along with you while the grief is sticky and goopy on my soul. And I know so well the stare, the pause, the breath, the search in the eyes to try to figure out what to say because you don’t know what to say. And I don’t know what to say, maybe I shouldn’t have shared the sticky and goopy parts of my life. We’re not laughing anymore. It’s been so many years since everything happened and shame creeps up.

Sometimes I have a deep desire to reach back through the years and hold onto the moment before everything changed. That last moment of naivety to all that I’ve experienced after because life has changed so much, I’ve changed so much. That is also grief, even if there is beauty in some of the change. Because I don’t actually want to show up to the beach with my rain boots and blue umbrella in tow.

But I also know there could be many umbrella-holding sunbathers out there. Grief is touched by everyone eventually, a fading grief or chronic grief. A slow mourning or a periodic mourning. Shortened trauma or elongated trauma.

My umbrella is blue, what color is yours? You pull your small, retractable green umbrella out of your tote bag and lay it next to mine on the grass. Different umbrellas, but a deep understanding. I can’t imagine what you went through, I will never understand. But pain? It’s unbearable. Grief? It’s unimaginable. The sadness? It’s beyond heavy.

Many understand when I say my heart is a home to grief and wholeness. Many understand when I say I can still grieve and mourn just as much as I laugh and find overflowing joy. So even though it’s years later, this is what my healing looks like. I’m showing up, I’m living life, I just have rain boots on and umbrella in tow.