There’s a common phrase people use when someone is grieving: “You’ll move on.” Sometimes it’s said softly, other times with misplaced encouragement, but always with the implication that grief is a place to leave behind.
But here’s the truth—there is no “moving on” from grief. And we don’t walk through it, either, as if it’s a season with a finish line. We walk in it. Every day. Every breath. Every step. Grief becomes the space we inhabit. It threads itself through the hours like oxygen, unseen but constant.
Yes, we move forward—but that doesn’t mean we’ve left grief behind. Forward just means we’ve taken another step, maybe even accomplished something, laughed at a joke, or cooked a meal without crying. But we’re still carrying the grief. We’re still in it. Always.
The world that once made sense, that once held the rhythm of ordinary life—texts from them, their voice in the next room, plans for the future—it’s gone. And with it, our old normal. That version of life is no longer accessible. It’s not just that we miss someone we loved; it’s that we miss who we were when they were here. That version of ourselves is gone too.
We are not going back. The world tilted the day they left, and no matter how much time passes, it won’t ever tilt back. But here’s where the strange beauty of survival comes in—we learn to walk upside down. We adapt to the disorientation. We stretch new muscles, ones we never wanted to use, and slowly, we begin to find a new baseline.
It won’t feel fair. It won’t feel like enough. And sometimes, it won’t feel like anything at all. But we keep going. Not because we’ve healed. Not because we’re “over it.” But because love insists that we keep living, even when we’re living with a broken heart.
Grief doesn’t end. It becomes part of our internal landscape, a quiet ache that echoes in places joy used to live. But we learn how to carry it. We learn how to exist within it. And somehow, even upside down, we keep walking.
P.S. I wrote a poem with the same title after Sarah died in 2006. I haven’t been able to locate a copy of it but I will share it if I ever find it.