Grief Is Love With Nowhere to Go

There is something I have learned over the last six months about grief.

On October 1st, I lost my Dad.

It happened far faster than any of us expected. He had been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer, and although we knew what that diagnosis meant, nothing prepares you for the moment time suddenly runs out.

I was blessed to be beside him during his final days and final moments. That is something I will carry with me forever.

What I did not know at the time was that losing my Dad would become the beginning of a long season of loss over the next five months.

Someone once told me that grief is simply love with nowhere to go.

They were right.

Grief hurts.
It is empty.
It is lonely.

I was not ready for my Dad to leave.

There was still so much I wanted to do with him. I wanted to fish with him again. I wanted to take him to Alaska with me and Juneau. I wanted more ordinary moments that life always convinces us we will have later.

But suddenly, there was no later.

And when someone you love leaves this world, you find yourself grasping for anything that still feels connected to them.

His scrubs from work.
His favorite shirt.
Photographs.
Saved voicemails so I would never forget the sound of his voice.

I needed my Dad.
I needed him to still be here.

This is grief.

It is the longing to hold onto the person who left.

My Dad was bigger than life. His voice was deep and steady, the kind that resonated through every room and somehow reached every heart at the same time.

And when that voice suddenly becomes silence, the world feels unimaginably different.