If you had asked me a month ago how I was doing, I probably would have told you I was okay.
Not because I was, but because I genuinely believed I was. I knew something was changing from my last blog post. I just didn’t know it would change the way it did.
Looking back now, I don’t think I actually grieved when my grandfather died. I survived. Those two things are very different, but when you’re in the middle of it, it’s almost impossible to tell them apart.
The day after I got back to Charleston from Conway, I went straight back to work. Looking back, it almost feels absurd, but at the time it didn’t even cross my mind to do anything different. The horse farm still needed me, and to be honest, my grandfather would’ve wanted me to be with the horses. I just went straight back into, “normal life.”
Well I remember heading to work that day, pulling out of my apartment complex. Like I always do. I looked to the left at incoming traffic and boom. I had a full on panic attack. Like the knees weak, arms are heavy one. I had to pull over and call my grandmother to help me through it.
At the time, it scared me.
Looking back now, I think it was the first honest thing my body had done since my grandfather passed away. My mind was determined to keep moving. My body knew I was carrying something far heavier than I was allowing myself to feel.
The truth is, I know exactly why I reacted that way.
When I was eleven years old, my entire life changed overnight. I lost both of my parents, and there wasn’t really an option to fall apart. Life kept moving then, too. School still started every morning. Homework still had to get done. People still expected me to grow up. My grandparents stepped into a role they never planned on having, and they became everything for me. They weren’t just my grandparents. They became my home, my stability, my safe place, and the people who loved me through every version of myself.
When my grandfather died this year, I don’t think my brain saw it as a brand-new experience. I think it recognized something it had survived before.
Without even realizing it, I went right back into survival mode.
I filled every hour I could. I went back to the horse farm before the sun had fully warmed the morning air. I worked shifts at the coffee shop. I continued pet sitting. I answered real estate calls and worried about my listing because the market doesn’t pause for grief. I adopted Kit Kat and slowly introduced her to Rosie. I tried to keep creating because creating has always been part of who I am.
I celebrated another birthday, even though it felt completely different than every birthday before it. I drove back and forth between Charleston and Conway more times than I could count, trying to be there for my grandmother while also figuring out how to build a life back home.
From the outside, I probably looked strong. People told me they didn’t know how I was doing it all.
The truth is, I don’t think I was doing it all very well.
I was just really good at staying busy.
I think we romanticize strength sometimes. We picture strength as the person who keeps showing up, keeps working, keeps smiling, keeps carrying everyone else. But I’ve started wondering if sometimes that’s just survival wearing a really convincing disguise.
The hardest part wasn’t the hospital. It wasn’t making impossible decisions with my family.
The hardest part has been now. Now that everyone has gone back to work. Now that the flowers are gone. Now that people have stopped asking how I’m doing because enough time has passed. Now that I have quiet drives home where my mind has room to wander. Now that life looks normal again while my heart quietly reminds me that nothing feels quite the same.
That’s the part no one prepares you for.
People often talk about the first holidays, the first birthdays, the first anniversaries without someone you love. Those are hard, and I know they’ll come. But no one tells you about the random Tuesday when you’re driving home from work and suddenly realize you’ll never hear their voice again. No one tells you about walking through the grocery store and seeing their favorite snack. No one tells you about reaching for your phone because you have something funny to tell them before remembering there isn’t a number to call anymore. Or call to ask how to make his famous meatloaf.
Those moments have become some of the hardest.
His death also brought something else to the surface that I wasn’t expecting. It reopened the grief I’ve carried since I was a little girl.
Losing my grandfather wasn’t just losing my grandfather. It reminded me what it felt like to lose my parents. It reminded me how fragile life really is. It reminded me that sometimes the people you love most can be here one day and gone the next.
I wish I could tell you that I’ve handled that realization with grace. Some days I have. Other days I’ve been angry. Not at anyone in particular.
Just…angry.
Angry that life keeps asking people to say goodbye. Angry that grief doesn’t seem to stay neatly in one chapter of your life. It has a way of reaching backward, pulling old wounds into the present until you’re grieving more than one person at a time.
If I’m honest, that’s probably been the hardest part.
I’m not just grieving my grandfather. I’m grieving my parents all over again. And with that comes a fear I wish I didn’t understand so well.
I’m afraid of losing more people.
I catch myself looking at the people I love differently now. I wonder how much time we really get with each other. I think about my grandmother more than I used to. I hug people a little longer. I notice how quickly ordinary moments become memories. It’s not a fear that controls my life, but it’s there in the background, quietly reminding me that nothing is guaranteed.
Grief has a funny way of making joy feel like betrayal. I’m slowly learning that it isn’t. The people who loved us don’t spend their lives hoping we’ll stop living after they’re gone.
If anything, I think they hope we’ll keep finding reasons to smile.
I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing my grandfather. I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing my parents either. Grief doesn’t have an expiration date, and honestly, I don’t want it to. Missing someone is proof that they mattered. It’s proof that love doesn’t end just because someone’s life does.
What I do hope is that I stop believing I have to outrun it. I don’t have to fill every minute to avoid feeling. I don’t have to earn rest. I don’t have to pretend I’m okay just because I made it through another workday.
Maybe healing isn’t about getting back to the person I was before.
Maybe that version of me doesn’t exist anymore.
Maybe healing is learning to carry every version of my story—the little girl who lost her parents, the granddaughter who lost the man who helped raise her, the woman who’s still building a career, still chasing dreams, still caring for animals, still recording podcasts, still writing blogs, still laughing with friends, and somehow finding the courage to believe that there is still so much life left to live.
If there’s one thing this season has taught me, it’s this: Survival will get you through the hardest days. But eventually, if you’re lucky, you have to stop surviving. You have to start living again. I don’t think I’m all the way there yet.
Some days are still incredibly hard. Some days I still cry in my car. Some days I still get angry that life feels so unfair. Some days I still wish I could call all three of them, my mom, my dad, and my grandfather, and tell them about everything that’s happened.
But for the first time in a long time, I can also see pieces of hope returning. Not because my grief is smaller. But because my life is slowly becoming big enough to hold both.
And maybe that’s what healing really looks like.
Xoxo, Alli<3
Leave a comment