Grief: A Love Story Told Backwards

This blog comes after procrastinating a 2-day grief forum through PESI and finally having the space to sit by the fire on my 10th anniversary and actually read it. And it hit me like a sucker punch. Some of the realities about grief lined up with how I’ve already been handling it in sessions, but they also cracked me open in ways I didn’t expect. Losing people fucking blows. Period.

In my personal experience, I’ve never felt like a friend or family member was sent off in a way that felt most true to them. Too often my own feelings were left behind in the process...especially when I was the “representative” at wakes or funerals if my family couldn’t attend. And honestly? Those ceremonies rarely feel like they honor the actual person. They feel insensitive, disconnected, and sometimes even performative. There’s that old saying, “who shows up for you when you died is who you showed up for when you were alive.” I’ve seen it play out, and it stings.

And here’s the part nobody likes to say out loud: we lie about how people lived. “Lie” might be strong, but we sure as hell highlight the good and sweep the bad under the rug. We canonize people at their funerals, turning assholes into saints in thirty minutes or less. Hitler was a fucking asshole...his memory deserves to be remembered as that of a piece of shit. If you lived like trash, your funeral shouldn’t be a clean-up act. No amount of pastors reciting hymns can rewrite the truth. Death doesn’t launder a reputation. The balance of the scales doesn’t disappear when you die...it shows up in who misses you, how they talk about you, and how they choose (or refuse) to carry your memory (Neimeyer, Klass, & Dennis, 2014).

This is where the bullshit really shows: funerals become this collective lying session. We embellish the good, gloss over the bad, and act like the person was universally adored. But legacy doesn’t work that way. If you were a good human, people will know it without the PR spin. If you were an asshole, everyone in that room already knows...and no polished speech is going to trick them into forgetting it. Death doesn’t rewrite history...it just brings the receipts. Think of it like Yelp reviews: no matter how many fake five-stars you buy, if the service was garbage, people are going to remember and talk about it.

I know what I want for myself: I want my funeral to be a celebration. I want people to tell stories...good, bad, and indifferent...because that’s what makes a life real. I’ve met people who lost terrible people and refuse to talk about them, and that’s its own kind of death. To me, being missed is the gift we leave behind. Legacy is just the echo of who we were, good, bad, and everything in between.

Grief isn’t tidy, polite, or easy to package. It’s wanting to trade places with the person who died. It’s secretly wishing someone else had gone instead. It’s waking up pretending nothing happened, only to get slammed by the truth all over again. It’s downplaying how much they meant because admitting it out loud feels like drowning. It’s laughing at a memory one second and bargaining with the universe the next.

We try to sand down those edges, polish grief into something Instagram-worthy or church-appropriate. But grief is jagged. It’s blunt, ugly, and sometimes funny in the worst ways. That’s what makes it human.

Defining Grief: What It Is (and Isn’t)

Grief isn’t only about death, though that’s where most people’s minds go first. From finally digging into that grief symposium I’d been putting off, grief is any reaction to a permanent loss...anything that rips away something central to your identity. Blow out your knee and never play ball again? That’s grief. Get into an accident and never walk again? Grief. Divorce, losing a job you loved, infertility, a hysterectomy, estrangement from your own kid...those are funerals without caskets. The grief is real because the loss is real.

The clinical definition of grief ties it to “loss,” not only death (American Psychological Association, 2023). And that matters, because minimizing these non-death losses leaves people carrying invisible coffins. You might not get flowers or casseroles, but your nervous system still collapses. That ache you feel when the doctor says “never again” is the same circuitry that lights up when someone dies (Shear, 2015). It’s all grief...it’s just that some kinds get public rituals while others get silence.

And here’s the kicker: sometimes these invisible griefs cut deeper because they’re harder to name. You’re not crazy for feeling gutted after losing something you loved that defined you. You’re grieving. And grief, in all its forms, deserves to be acknowledged (Doka, 2002).

But for the sake of this piece, I’m going to keep the focus on death-related grief...the kind that slams into us when someone we love is gone for good. Because while grief wears a lot of faces, death is the one that most brutally forces us to sit with its weight.

1.      Grief is normal...but “normal” is cultural

Grief isn’t a disease. It’s the body and soul reacting to loss. But what counts as “normal” depends on where you stand. In Jewish tradition, shiva means seven days of mourning with community (Rosenblatt, 2021). In Japan, a butsudan altar keeps ancestors alive in the household long after they’ve gone (Suzuki, 2019). In Mexico, Día de los Muertos honors the dead with color and joy (Brandes, 2006). Compare that to the U.S., where we get three bereavement days and a half-hearted “sorry for your loss” before HR tells you to get back to productivity.

Normal isn’t one-size-fits-all. It’s shaped by upbringing, culture, and the unspoken rules of your family. Some families cry loud and proud; others stay stoic. Neither is broken. Pretending there’s one right way to grieve is like pretending there’s one correct accent. Grief speaks in dialects. They’re all valid.

And here’s the blunt truth: if your grief is messy, loud, inconvenient, and raw...you’re not sick. You’re human. Culture doesn’t cure grief; it just gives it a frame. If yours looks different than the people around you, it’s not wrong. It’s yours.

2.      Funerals don’t always help.

Unpopular opinion: funerals and wakes are often disconnected, sterile, and staged. A pastor who barely knew the person recites cookie-cutter lines, we sit stiff in folding chairs, and then someone drops the word “closure” like it’s a magic spell. Spoiler: grief doesn’t end with a eulogy. In Ghana, funerals are multi-day parties of music and dance. In Ireland, wakes blend tears and laughter. Compare that to our somber, scripted ceremonies and it’s obvious why so many leave feeling more empty than held (Castle & Phillips, 2003).

Funerals here often feel like theater. Dress up, sit down, stand up, repeat after me, then shuffle into a cold luncheon where people talk about sports instead of the person you actually lost. Meanwhile, you’re bleeding out inside. It’s disjointed, uncomfortable, and often feels ingenuine.

Closure doesn’t come from polished sermons. It comes from the messy stories, the late-night conversations, the moments where laughter collides with tears. That’s where grief breathes. Too often, funerals miss the point.

3.      Grief is emotional…and physical.

Loss isn’t just sadness...it’s insomnia, nausea, tightness in your chest, brain fog so thick you can’t find your keys. It’s crying in the grocery store because you saw their favorite snack. It’s your whole body screaming, I can’t believe they’re gone (Stroebe et al., 2007).

Grief hijacks your sleep, appetite, and immune system. Telling someone to “be strong” is like telling someone with pneumonia to walk it off. The body doesn’t negotiate with grief.

And yet workplaces act like three days off is plenty. Other cultures press pause on life for mourners; we expect a quick bounce back, like grief can be contained in a long weekend. That disconnect is why grief feels like both an illness and a rebellion. Your body knows it needs more time, even when the calendar says you’re “done.”

4.      Grief distorts time.

Ask anyone grieving: six months feels like yesterday, yesterday feels like forever. Grief takes a sledgehammer to the clock. You can’t tell if you’ve been crying for five minutes or five hours.

Some traditions honor this distortion. Orthodox mourning stretches over a year, with formal markers at 7, 40, and 365 days. These time-anchors say: grief will not be rushed. Meanwhile, here, people start side-eyeing you if you’re “still sad” after the funeral flowers wilt (Rosenblatt, 2008). As if time erases love.

Grief doesn’t run on the calendar...it runs on memory, biology, and heartbreak. When people say “time heals all wounds,” they’re only half right. Time changes wounds. But it sure as hell doesn’t erase them.

5.      Grief reshapes memory.

Songs, smells, a favorite chair...memories hit like sucker punches. They don’t just “remind” you; they undo you. One second you’re fine, the next you’re crying into your steering wheel because of a song. That’s grief...ambush style.

In cultures with remembrance rituals...altars, ancestor offerings, storytelling...memory has somewhere to land (Walter, 1999). It becomes a bridge, not a landmine.

Western culture often treats remembering as regression: Why are you still thinking about them? But anniversaries, flashbacks, and the gut-punch of memory aren’t failures. They’re proof that love mattered. Memory doesn’t fade...it mutates. And that’s not dysfunction. That’s devotion.

6.      Grief is relational.

Grief exposes your circle. Some show up with casseroles. Some ghost you because they “don’t know what to say.” Some lob fortune-cookie bullshit: They’re in a better place. Please. That’s not comfort...it’s avoidance.

Cultures with collective grieving rituals protect against loneliness (Rosenblatt, 2008). Meals, rituals, community presence...all of it keeps mourners held. We? We ghost the grieving, then act surprised when they feel abandoned.

Grief is relational, and it clarifies fast. Who can stand in the mess with you, and who can’t. Brutal, but clarifying. It’s the ultimate relationship filter.

7.      Grief is lifelong.

This isn’t a phase you “get over.” There’s no graduation day from grief. Love doesn’t end when a heartbeat does. It morphs...sometimes gentle, sometimes savage, but always present.

Cultures that honor ancestors, dedicate festivals, or set aside days for the dead give grief permission to stay (Walter, 2018). Our culture slaps labels on people as “stuck” if they’re still grieving after a few months. But grief isn’t a squatter you evict. It’s a roommate you learn to live with.

And maybe that’s the point: grief is love’s shadow. Where there’s love, there’s grief. The goal isn’t to kick it out...it’s to make space for it without letting it run your whole life.

When grief becomes all-consuming

Grief is consuming. It hijacks your sleep, appetite, energy, and focus. That’s normal...at first. But if months go by and you’re still drowning...can’t get out of bed, can’t function, can’t imagine a future...that’s when grief morphs into something clinical. Complicated grief. Depression. PTSD. Whatever the diagnosis, the point is: you’re not weak. You’re overwhelmed. And overwhelmed people need help, not judgment (Hall, 2014).

Other cultures buffer mourners with structure and community. We cut people loose after the funeral. If your grief feels endless, it may not be you...it may be the culture failing you. Therapy, groups, medication, rituals you invent yourself...none of these mean you’re grieving “wrong.” They mean you’re human, reaching for lifelines in deep water.

If grief feels all-consuming, it doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means the loss was that heavy, that life-altering. And you deserve the same compassion you’d offer anyone else.

Grief is the most human thing we’ll ever do, yet the thing we’re least prepared for. We live in a culture that rushes us back to work, hides death behind polished caskets, and tells us three days off should be enough. But grief doesn’t run on timelines, and it sure as fuck doesn’t end with a eulogy. It’s messy, sacred, hilarious at times, brutal at others, and always...always...a reflection of love. Maybe the best we can do is stop pretending grief has rules and start admitting it’s just love, told backwards. And love...thankfully, painfully, beautifully...doesn’t have an expiration date.

-Matt

References

• American Psychological Association. (2023). Grief. In APA dictionary of psychology. https://dictionary.apa.org/grief

• Brandes, S. (2006). Skulls to the living, bread to the dead: The Day of the Dead in Mexico and beyond. Blackwell Publishing.

• Castle, J., & Phillips, W. (2003). Grief rituals: Aspects that facilitate adjustment to bereavement. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 8(1), 41–71.

• Doka, K. J. (2002). Disenfranchised grief: Recognizing hidden sorrow. Lexington Books.

• Hall, C. (2014). Bereavement theory: Recent developments in our understanding of grief and bereavement. Bereavement Care, 33(1), 7–12.

• Neimeyer, R. A., Klass, D., & Dennis, M. R. (2014). A social constructionist account of grief: Loss and the narration of meaning. Death Studies, 38(8), 485–498.

• Rosenblatt, P. C. (2008). Grief across cultures: A review and research agenda. Death Studies, 32(1), 79–100.

• Rosenblatt, P. C. (2021). Parent grief: Narratives of loss and relationship. Routledge.

• Shear, M. K. (2015). Complicated grief. New England Journal of Medicine, 372(2), 153–160.

• Stroebe, M., Schut, H., & Stroebe, W. (2007). Health outcomes of bereavement. The Lancet, 370(9603), 1960–1973.

• Suzuki, H. (2019). The price of death: The funeral industry in contemporary Japan. Stanford University Press.

• Walter, T. (1999). On bereavement: The culture of grief. Open University Press.

• Walter, T. (2018). What death means now: Thinking critically about dying and grieving. Policy Press.