There's No Timeline in Grief

Grief doesn't follow a schedule

Healing doesn't happen on a timeline

“Are you doing better?”

“How long has it been?”

“Have you gotten over it yet?”

“Isn’t it time to move on?”

“When will you be ready to date again?”

Maybe you've been asked some or all of these questions.

Maybe you've asked them of yourself.

When am I going to feel normal again?

Grief is long and hard. We want to be “better.” We want to feel normal again. And it's uncomfortable for other people to watch us hurt. Our friends and family want that for us too. They want to fix our sadness. They want “us” back.

But the truth is, you won't be the same person you were before your loss.

Losing your spouse will forever change you, and it takes time to navigate everything that comes with that loss.

I know that when I was asked some of these questions, it made me feel like I needed to be further along than I was. It felt like I wasn't grieving the right way because I was still so sad. I missed Jon terribly. It felt like I was failing because my grief was still so present.

I wanted to know when it was going to end.

We like timelines because timelines make things predictable. They keep things orderly. They give us an idea of what to expect.

Broken bones take a certain amount of time to heal.

School has a beginning and an end.

Pregnancy lasts about nine months.

But grief doesn't work that way.

There isn't a certain number of months or years after which you are “finished” grieving. Grief will be part of your life for the rest of your life. You will always miss the person you lost.

That doesn't mean you will always hurt this deeply. It doesn't mean you will always feel as though you're carrying a weight you can't put down. And it certainly doesn't mean you will always feel the way you feel right now.

Grief changes.

I remember the first night I didn't cry myself to sleep after Jon died.

When I realized it the next morning, I was both relieved and heartbroken.

Was I forgetting him?

Did that mean I didn't love him as much?

No, it didn't.

It meant that grief was changing, even if just a tiny bit.

The grief was still incredibly intense. I still missed Jon terribly. But for the first time, there had been a little space between me and the overwhelming sadness.

I think sometimes we expect healing to be obvious. We imagine that one day we'll wake up and suddenly feel like ourselves again.

But that's usually not how it happens.

Grief slowly becomes less intense, less demanding, and less overwhelming.

Early grief can feel constant. There's no getting away from it. It can dictate your entire day.

You wake up thinking about your loss.

You go to sleep thinking about your loss.

Everything reminds you of what has changed.

But eventually, there are moments when you don't think about it. Then there are minutes. Then maybe an afternoon. And one day you realize you laughed and didn't immediately feel guilty about it.

You enjoyed something without thinking about what was missing.

You made a decision without wondering what your husband would have said.

You had a good day.

And none of that means you have forgotten.

Now, seventeen years later, I don't grieve the way I did that first year. But that doesn't mean I don't grieve.

Grief still shows up in predictable ways, like Jon's birthday, anniversaries, and big milestones.

And sometimes it shows up in completely unexpected ways.

I can find something in his handwriting and suddenly feel that familiar ache.

This past March was an unexpectedly heavy season for me. I couldn't always pinpoint exactly why it was so difficult. There were memories connected to that time of year, and my body seemed to remember things my mind wasn't consciously thinking about.

Sometimes grief just shows up.

But it isn't the same grief I experienced seventeen years ago. It's not at the forefront of every day. It doesn't consume me. And when I experience a wave of grief, it doesn't mean I haven't healed.

That's an important thing to understand.

Healing isn't linear.

You can feel like you're doing well and then have a really hard day.

You can think you've worked through something and then find yourself crying unexpectedly.

You can go months without feeling overwhelmed by grief and then have a particular date, place, song, memory, or milestone bring it all rushing back.

That doesn't mean you've gone backward.

It doesn't mean you've failed.

It doesn't mean you need to start all over again.

It means you loved someone deeply, and grief is part of learning to live without them.

I've written about this before in my series What People Don't Understand About Widowhood, particularly Why Moving On Isn’t the Goal, and in my Moving Forward After Losing Your Spouse series, especially the post Two Steps Forward, One Step Back.

But I think it's worth repeating because so many of us put timelines on ourselves.

We think we should be further along.

We think we should have made a certain decision by now.

We think we should be ready for something because someone else was ready at the same point in their grief.

But there is no timeline for grief.

There is no right time to go back to work.

There is no right time to move.

There is no right time to go through your husband's belongings.

There is no right time to date again.

There is no right time to remarry.

And there is no deadline for feeling better.

Your grief is your own. Your story is your own. You don't have to follow someone else's timeline. And you don't have to apologize because you're still grieving.

If you're in the early days of grief, be gentle with yourself.

If it's been a year, be gentle with yourself.

If it's been five years, ten years, or seventeen years, be gentle with yourself.

You don't have to be finished grieving to be healing. You don't have to stop missing your husband to move forward. And you don't have to prove to anyone that you're okay.

There will be days when grief feels close.

There will be days when it feels far away.

There will be days when you laugh, days when you cry, and days when you do both.

That's okay.

There is no timeline.

You don't have to rush your grief. You don't have to fix it. You don't have to get over it. You simply have to keep learning how to live with the love and the loss.

And you can trust God to meet you wherever you are in that process.

I created a new resource for anyone walking through grief. It's a Grief Journal that helps you process through your loss. You can find it in my Etsy shop here: GRIEF JOURNAL FOR NAVIGATING LOSS