The Question That Didn’t Fit (and the Answer That Did)
In hospice, I’ve seen grief in the way people expect — the kind that comes with a date, a service, and people hugging you in the church parking lot. But there’s another kind too, one with no timeline, no casseroles, no obituary.
It’s the grief that shows up for things you can’t point to — dreams that quietly collapsed, relationships that faded without a fight, the “someday” you built in your head that never actually arrived.
It’s quieter than death, but somehow heavier. At least with a funeral, there’s a moment where everyone agrees: this is over. With the other kind, you just keep walking around it, pretending it’s not sitting in the corner taking up space.
Lately, I’ve been tripping over my own version. Not one big heartbreak, but a collection of small ones, each pulling a little more air from the room. I keep showing up — doing my job, taking care of the kids, keeping life moving — but inside, it feels like I’m living in a house where someone slowly moved the furniture out while I wasn’t looking. Everything echoes now.
It’s tangled up with a question someone recently asked me: Who am I? Sounds harmless, but it’s the kind of question that rips up floorboards. In sorting through the mess, I’ve had to face something I’d rather not admit — I’m a runner. When things get uncomfortable, I start looking for the exit.
I’ve called it “self-preservation,” but it’s really grief-avoidance. If I leave before I have to watch something fall apart, maybe it won’t hurt as much. But it does — just slower, creeping in during quiet moments when I think I’ve outrun it. Even my so-called strengths feed into this: thoroughness turns into overexplaining to avoid the hard truth, accountability turns into carrying problems that aren’t mine, and storytelling can soften reality until I start believing the easier version.
And then, in the middle of this heavy reflection, the same person who asked Who am I? tossed me a completely different question: If you could be any item in someone’s glove compartment, what would you be? I blinked. I honestly had no idea how that had anything to do with the meeting or what we were talking about. Maybe it was meant to loosen me up; maybe it was a tangent. Either way, I felt a little lost in the pivot — and still, the first answer that stumbled out was the half-working mini flashlight. It blinks more than it beams, but it comes through. It’s found Maddie’s hair tie, a Lego buried in crumbs, and once, a sliver of courage on a rough night. The battery wavers, yet the light is there when I need it.
The trouble with grief that doesn’t have a funeral is you don’t get a clear moment where you say, Okay, it’s time to let this go. You have to give yourself that moment. And I’m not there yet. I’m still holding onto pieces I thought would fit in my life forever, even if I know they don’t belong anymore.
In hospice, I’ve seen the peace that comes when people finally speak the words they’ve been holding, make the call they’ve avoided, or simply allow someone to see the truth. Maybe that’s my work right now — not the kind I can check off a to-do list, but the kind where I sit with what’s gone, name it, and decide if it still gets to live in my head rent-free.
Because you can’t carry unspoken grief forever without it shaping you. And I’m realizing I want to be the one doing the shaping — before the weight of all the things I’ve avoided ends up shaping me.
