The phone rings. You stare at it. Your hand won’t move. Someone else answers. Their voice sounds far away, underwater. They’re saying words. Your name. Hospital. Didn’t make it.
The room tilts.
You’re on the floor but don’t remember your legs giving out. The carpet smells like dust. There’s a sound……high, animal, coming from somewhere. It’s coming from you.
Morning. The alarm goes off. You reach across the bed. Cold sheets. Empty space. Your arm drops. You lie there watching ceiling paint crack into continents you’ll never visit.
The kettle boils. You pour two mugs. The second one sits there, steam rising, going cold. You watch it for an hour. Maybe two. Time doesn’t work anymore.
Shower. You stand under the water. Hot, then cold, then scalding. You can’t feel it. Your skin is someone else’s skin. These hands lifting the soap….whose hands? You watch them like you’re behind glass.
You drive to work. Arrive in the carpark. Don’t remember the route. Don’t remember leaving the house. Don’t remember if you locked the door. Your keys are in your hand but you can’t remember picking them up.
Someone at work asks how you are. Your mouth opens. Nothing comes out. Or maybe it does….. maybe you say “fine”……. but your voice sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of a well.
Lunch. You unwrap a sandwich. Bite. Chew. Cardboard. Everything tastes like cardboard. You swallow anyway because that’s what bodies do. Except yours forgot how. You choke. Cough. Spit it into a napkin.
Walking down the street. A couple holding hands. She laughs at something he said. Throws her head back, hair catching sunlight. Your chest caves in. You lean against a shop window, gasping. People walk past. Their faces blur. The world is moving at normal speed and you’re stuck in tar.
Night. 2 AM. 3 AM. 4 AM. The ceiling fan circles. Your heart pounds. Your stomach is a fist. You count their breaths that aren’t there. The weight of them that isn’t there. The warmth that used to press against your back.
People keep saying “I’m sorry for your loss.” Loss. Like you misplaced your keys. Like you left your wallet on the bus. Like if you retrace your steps, you’ll find them waiting.
They’re not waiting.
They’re gone.
And you’re still here, heart beating, lungs breathing, body moving through a world that kept spinning when it should have stopped.
You’re Not Doing It Wrong
Thursday morning. Making toast. The bread goes in. You’re humming. Actually humming. Then you reach for the Vegemite…..no, wait, the other spread, the one she liked. Your hand freezes. The knife clatters into the sink.
She’s not here.
She’ll never eat this toast.
A cold tear runs down your cheek. The kitchen is deathly silent. Mornings. Used to mean birdsong and first coffee. Now mean: another day of this.
By Thursday afternoon, you’re fine. Completely fine. Replying to emails. Laughing at a colleague’s joke. Normal. You’re doing normal.
Friday, you wake up and feel nothing. Not sad. Not okay. Just blank. A week of grey. You move through rooms like a ghost. People talk at you. Their mouths move. You nod. You have no idea what they said.
Tuesday morning two months later, you’re in the supermarket. The air conditioning hums. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead. You’re reaching for the vintage cheddar, the one they always wanted. Your hand closes around it……. cold, waxy wrapper………drops it in the basket.
Two steps past the dairy case when it hits.
They’re not home.
They won’t be home.
That cheese will sit in your fridge and go mouldy because there’s no one there to eat it.
Your throat closes. Someone’s trolley squeaks past. A child is crying three aisles over. Gripping the handle, knuckles white. Your chest is heaving. The tears are coming. The cucumbers blur. The tomatoes blur. Everything blurs.
An hour later, still in the carpark, forehead pressed against the steering wheel, unable to turn the key.
You thought you were past this. You thought month two meant progress. But grief doesn’t move in a line. It circles. It ambushes. It waits until you’re reaching for cheese.
The Body Doesn’t Queue
They told you grief has stages. Five of them. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. A ladder. You climb it, rung by rung, until you reach the top and you’re healed.
Except that’s not what’s happening.
One day you’re rage. Pure rage. At the doctors who didn’t save them. At the universe for taking them. At them for leaving you. At yourself for every stupid fight, every moment you wasted being angry about nothing.
Next day? Nothing. Flat. Empty. You stare at walls. Hours pass. You don’t notice.
The day after that, you’re bargaining with a god you don’t believe in. If I’d called five minutes earlier. If we’d gone to a different hospital. If I’d noticed the signs. If, if, if.
Then you’re fine. Genuinely fine. Making plans. Thinking about the future. Laughing at something stupid on TV. And the guilt comes rushing in like a riptide. How dare you laugh. How dare you forget them for five whole minutes. What kind of person are you?
Wednesday, the laugh escapes before you catch it….watching that ridiculous video your friend sent. Five whole seconds, you forgot. Then memory slams back in like a fist to the solar plexus. How dare you. Chest cavity collapses inward. Breathing through concrete.
3 AM Thursday. Eyes open. The ceiling fan circles. Stomach a clenched fist. Sleep is a country with borders you can’t cross. Lying there counting their breaths that aren’t there, the weight of them beside you that isn’t there, the warmth that used to press against your back.
Friday morning, you wake disoriented. You think you hear sounds in the kitchen…..they must be making coffee. That familiar shuffle of bare feet on floorboards, the click of the kettle. Or no, wait……they’ve gone to the shops, you just heard the door. You reach for your phone to text them: Get milk. Their name is right there in your favourites, profile photo smiling back, frozen in a moment when everything made sense. Your thumb hovers.
Then your brain catches up.
The kitchen is silent.
The screen blurs. Your hand drops. You stare at the ceiling and count your own breaths because that’s all there is to count now.
Stages suggest order. A path. A map. But your body doesn’t queue emotions in neat lines. It detonates them. Randomly. Repeatedly. Morning steadiness, afternoon collapse. Rage at 2 PM, numbness at 4 PM, bargaining at midnight. A laugh that surprises you, then shame for having it.
You’re not behind schedule. There is no schedule.
You’re living an earthquake that keeps sending aftershocks.
The Body Knows What’s Missing
A woman sits across from me. Her palm is flat against her sternum. She’s pressing hard, like she’s trying to hold something in—or keep something out.
“I was in a café,” she says. Her eyes are somewhere else. “Everything normal. Normal Tuesday. I ordered my flat white, sat down with my laptop. Then that song came on.”
She stops. Swallows.
“Their song. Our song. And it was like……” She demonstrates by inhaling sharply, chest lifting, then holding. “….like someone vacuumed all the oxygen out of the room. My ribs went tight. My throat closed. I couldn’t….I just sat there, hand right here….” Palm still pressed to her chest. “…..waiting for air to find me again.”
Her coffee has gone cold. She doesn’t notice.
“How long did it take?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Five minutes? Twenty? Time just…..” She makes a gesture like scattering. “I stopped trying to make it stop. I just sat there, breathing shallow, hand on my chest, and waited.”
The café kept moving around her. Orders called out. Milk steaming. Laptop keys clicking. The song ended. Another song started. Eventually, her lungs remembered how to expand.
Another person describes waking every morning. Three seconds of peace. Then remembering.
“Every single day,” they say. Their hands are gripping the edge of the table. Knuckles white. “Every single morning, I forget for three seconds. Then I remember. And it’s like dying all over again. Like someone reaches into my chest and squeezes.”
They pause. Look at their hands. Loosen the grip.
“People say ‘it gets easier.’ But that moment…..that morning moment…..it never gets easier. I just know it’s coming now. I brace for it.”
Someone else tells me about the grocery shopping. How they still reach for two of everything. Two apples. Two yoghurts. Two chicken breasts. The muscle memory is so deep they don’t notice until they’re at the checkout and the cashier is scanning doubles and they’re standing there thinking: Why did I buy two?
Then they remember.
The frozen aisle is where they lose it. Every time. Something about the cold air and the bright lights and the wall of frozen peas. They stand there, cart half-full, crying into their coat sleeve while other shoppers pretend not to see.
Another describes the phantom reach. Making tea. Their hand goes to the cupboard for two mugs. Gets two mugs down. Puts the tea bags in both. Pours the water. Then stands there looking at two steaming mugs and nowhere for the second one to go.
“Sometimes I make it anyway,” they say. “Let it go cold on the counter. Because stopping…….. reaching for one mug instead of two….. that feels like the final admission. Like I’m agreeing they’re gone.”
Your body knows what’s missing before your mind catches up. It reaches for them in sleep. It listens for their key in the door. It sets the table for two. It reaches for the phone to tell them the funny thing that just happened.
Your nervous system is scanning for them constantly. Every footstep in the hallway. Every car door. Every time your phone buzzes. Your body thinks they’re coming back.
They’re not coming back.
But your body hasn’t learned that yet.
Why the Stage Story Stuck
In 1969 a woman named Elisabeth Kübler-Ross publishes a book about how dying patients cope with their own impending death. She identifies five common responses: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
Somewhere along the way, those observations about the dying get misapplied to the bereaved. The stages become prescriptive. A checklist. A path to follow.
People loved it. We loved it. It gave us something to hold when we were terrified.
Because grief terrifies. Not just the grieving…… everyone. It’s proof that love costs. That security is temporary. That we’re all one phone call, one test result, one drunk driver away from a world that doesn’t make sense anymore.
So we built a ladder. If grief has five stages, there’s a finish line. If you can just get through denial, get through anger, get through bargaining and depression…… acceptance waits at the end like a certificate of completion. You graduate from grief.
The people around you loved it too. It gave them a script. A way to measure your progress. “Are you still in the anger stage?” “You need to work through your denial.” “When do you think you’ll reach acceptance?”
It promised control to those terrified of chaos.
But grief is chaos.
It doesn’t follow the map. It circles back. It skips steps. It hits you in year three harder than month one because someone wore the same perfume on the train. Because you heard a laugh that sounded like theirs. Because a stranger at the supermarket had the same way of pushing their glasses up their nose.
You can stop trying to pass the test.
There is no test.
There’s just Tuesday. And Wednesday. And Thursday. And getting through them.
Grief Is a Room Added to the House
You don’t walk through grief and exit the other side.
You build a room for it.
Some days you sit in that room for hours. Run your fingers over photographs. Press their favourite shirt to your face, breathe in what’s left. Sit on the floor surrounded by their things….. books they were reading, coffee mug with the chip in the handle, shoes by the door they’ll never wear again.
You cry. Or you don’t cry. You just sit.
Some days you pass the doorway. Touch the frame on your way to the kitchen. Acknowledge it’s there. Keep moving.
Some days you forget it exists. You’re making dinner, you’re working, you’re watching TV, you’re laughing at something ridiculous, and then you remember. The room is still there. It was there the whole time you forgot about it.
Some days you rearrange the furniture. Because the seasons changed. Because the light comes in different now. Because what you needed to hold in month three isn’t what you need in year two.
You add things. A candle you light on their birthday. A letter you wrote them. A playlist of songs that make you feel close. A rock from the beach you visited together.
The room changes shape as you do.
But it doesn’t disappear.
And slowly…… so slowly you don’t notice until you do….. you realise you’re living in the other rooms again. The kitchen. The living room. The garden. You’re living your life, and the grief room is just one room in the house now, not the whole house.
You still visit. Some days more than others. Some weeks you barely leave it. Some months you only peek in on Sundays.
But you’re living in more than one room now.
Love didn’t end. It changed state….. like water into ice, like ice into steam. Different form, same substance. Your life refracted through grief still holds colour.
Your Body Is Fighting a War It Can’t Win
Your nervous system thinks there’s still a war. It needs:
Rest. Not productivity. Not “getting back to normal.” Actual rest.
Your body is running on emergency power. Your adrenals are shot. Your cortisol is through the roof. You’re operating in constant fight-or-flight even though there’s nothing to fight, nowhere to flee.
Sleep. Even if it’s just twenty minutes on the couch. Even if you can’t sleep at night, rest during the day. Lie down. Close your eyes. Let your nervous system power down, even briefly.
Warmth. Soup. Tea. A hot shower that lasts too long. A blanket heavy enough to feel like arms around you.
Your body is cold from the inside. The kind of cold that doesn’t come from weather. The kind that settles into your bones when shock sets in and never quite leaves.
Heat helps. Not permanently. Not magically. But it helps.
Quiet. Say no to the gathering. No to the well-meaning friend who wants to “cheer you up.” No to dinner, to drinks, to “getting out of the house.”
You’re not being selfish. You’re surviving.
Your system is overloaded. Every interaction costs. Every conversation drains. Every smile you fake for someone else’s comfort carves another piece out of reserves you don’t have.
Protect your energy like your life depends on it. Because right now, it does.
Anchors. When the wave hits……and it will hit…. you need something solid. Not to stop the wave. You can’t stop the wave. But something to hold onto while it crashes over you.
You Need Something to Hold Onto While the Wave Crashes
You’re at work. Someone mentions a restaurant. The restaurant where you went for your last anniversary. Your chest tightens. The room narrows. Your breath gets shallow. You’re going under.
You need an anchor.
Put both hands on your ribs. Feel them rise and fall. Press down slightly. Feel the resistance. Say out loud…..or in your head if you’re in public…..Here I am. Still breathing.
Count your breath. In for four. Hold for four. Out for six. It sounds simple. It is simple. It won’t fix anything. But it will give your nervous system something to do other than panic.
You’re driving. A song comes on. Their song. The one you danced to in the kitchen that random Tuesday when everything was normal and you didn’t know normal was about to end. The steering wheel blurs. You’re crying so hard you can’t see.
Pull over.
You don’t have to be strong. You don’t have to push through. Pull over.
Sit there. Let it out. Sob into your hands. Scream if you need to. Beat the steering wheel. Do whatever your body needs to do.
Then, when the wave recedes…… and it will recede……find something unmoving. The road stretching ahead. A tree out the window. The mountains in the distance. The endless sky. Let your breath slow to match their steadiness.
You’re at home. Middle of the night. 3 AM. The grief hit you in your sleep and now you’re awake, heart pounding, room spinning. You’re drowning in your own bed.
Get up.
Don’t lie there fighting it. Get up. Walk to another room. Turn on a light. Make tea you won’t drink. Sit on the floor if the couch feels too big. Put your back against a wall. Feel something solid.
Write them a letter. Tell them about your day. Tell them you’re angry they left. Tell them you saw something that reminded you of them. Tell them you don’t know how to keep doing this.
They won’t write back. But your hands will have something to do. Your grief will have somewhere to go that isn’t just circling inside your chest.
Light a candle. Cook the meal they loved. Even if you eat it alone. Even if you cry into it. Even if you only manage three bites. Taste memory.
Find others who know this country. Support groups where you don’t have to explain. Online spaces where people understand that “how are you?” is a stupid question with no good answer. One trusted friend who doesn’t need you to be okay, who can sit with you while you’re not okay and not try to fix it.
None of this is prescription. None of this will make it better.
But it might make it bearable. Today. Just today.
This Isn’t Just Heartbreak. It’s Neurological
Grief floods your system with cortisol. Your stress hormone. The one that’s supposed to spike briefly in emergencies then recede.
Except grief isn’t brief. It’s not an emergency you can escape. So the cortisol stays elevated. Weeks. Months. Your body thinks you’re being chased by a predator that never stops chasing.
It dysregulates your nervous system. Throws off your sleep. Murders your appetite. Makes your heart race for no reason. Makes simple decisions feel impossible. Makes you forget words mid-sentence. Makes you stand in rooms not knowing why you entered.
It fractures your sense of safety. Because the worst thing happened. The thing you built your life around…..that person being there…..ended. If that can happen, anything can happen. Your nervous system knows this. It’s on high alert. Scanning for the next disaster.
You’re not going crazy. Your brain is doing exactly what brains do when the world stops making sense.
The anchors don’t fix that. Nothing fixes that.
But they give your body somewhere to land while your heart does work your mind can’t schedule. They tell your nervous system: Right now, in this moment, you’re safe. Right now, you can breathe.
Not forever. Just now.
And now is all you have to survive.
You’re Not Supposed to Be Over It
Year one, people are patient. They ask how you’re doing. They bring meals. They say “let me know if you need anything.”
Year two, they stop asking. They think you should be past it by now. They think “it’s been long enough.” They want the old you back.
There is no old you.
That person died with them.
You’re not supposed to be over it. You’re not supposed to have “moved on.” Moved on to where? To a life where they don’t exist? To a version of yourself that isn’t shaped by their absence?
You’re supposed to be alive with it.
There are no stages to finish. Only waves to ride. Some small enough to wade through. Some monstrous enough to pull you under.
You learn which beaches to avoid. Which songs not to play. Which routes to drive that don’t pass the places you went together. Which dates on the calendar hit harder. Their birthday. Your anniversary. The day they died. The random Tuesday that was actually the last normal day you had together.
You learn to spot the swell before it breaks. The tightness in your chest. The way your throat closes. The sudden need to leave the room. You learn to excuse yourself before you fall apart in front of people who wouldn’t understand.
You learn that you can go under and still come up.
The pain doesn’t vanish. But it learns its place beside your strength.
You discover you’re stronger than you knew. Not because you wanted to be. Not because you had a choice. But because every morning you opened your eyes when staying asleep felt easier. Because you kept breathing when breathing felt pointless. Because you survived Tuesday, then Wednesday, then Thursday, then a thousand Tuesdays after that.
You are still here.
Against all odds. Against every morning you didn’t think you could face. Against the nights you weren’t sure you’d survive.
You are still here.
And that is its own kind of miracle.
In memory of my love, Georgie Bailey, who showed me that the heart can expand to hold both the deepest sorrow and the most enduring love. Your presence is woven into every breath I take. ~ Geoffrey Clow
💔 Deep Grief Support for Life-Changing Loss
Some losses split your world in two…..before and after.
You don’t “move on.” You learn how to keep living in a world that doesn’t look or feel the same.
Im Geoffrey Clow, offer trauma-informed, heart-centred grief support for those navigating profound loss….the kind that changes who you are.
Together, we’ll work gently with both mind and body to find steadiness again, to locate meaning, and to learn how to carry what can’t be fixed.
Request an online one-on-one session or learn more about my support services.
