By Tess Ezzy 
After my grandmother died, I expected grief to follow some kind of order. Maybe not a checklist, exactly—but something linear. Something that would start sharp and painful and eventually fade. I thought I’d move through it like walking through a forest: one foot in front of the other, and eventually, I’d find my way out.
But grief didn’t work like that.
It came in waves. It moved in seasons. It showed up at odd times, like when I saw a jar of pickled okra at the grocery store, or when I pulled a skein of yarn from my craft box and caught the faintest whiff of the lavender she used to tuck in her dresser drawers.
It arrived on her birthday, of course. On the anniversary of her death. But it also arrived on the completely ordinary days—the kind of days when the sky is grey and your coffee is just a little too cold and you suddenly feel the ache of her absence like it just happened yesterday.
What no one told me is that grief doesn’t always feel like crying. Sometimes it feels like confusion. Or exhaustion. Or guilt. Or a tenderness you can’t quite name.
In the weeks after she passed, I tried to be “strong.” I wrote the eulogy. I helped clear out her sewing room. I held my mother’s hand. I told people I was okay, and in some ways, I was. But in other ways, I was lost.
She was the kind of grandmother who stitched love into everything. She embroidered pillowcases with our names. She made soup from scratch. She called me “koukla mou” and always had a story ready—about her island home, about the war, about the lace she used to make even when her hands were tired.
When someone like that leaves, they don’t just leave behind a chair at the table. They leave behind a kind of gravity. A way the world tilted that no longer exists.
I’ve come to understand that grief isn’t something you “get over.” It’s something you grow around. It becomes a part of the landscape. At first, it takes up everything. It eclipses your view. But slowly—so slowly—you begin to build a life around it. You plant things. You laugh again. You return to old places, even if they feel different now. And sometimes, when the light hits just right, you can feel both the absence and the presence at the same time.
One day, I picked up her crochet hook, the one she taught me with, and started a small project. I didn’t even know what I was making. But it felt like prayer. Like connection. Like saying, “I remember.” That’s when I realized that healing doesn’t mean forgetting. It means making space for love and loss to sit side by side.
Grief has taught me to notice things more. To pause. To cherish the way my child laughs like she did, or how my kitchen smells like hers when I bake cinnamon biscuits in winter. It’s taught me that legacy isn’t just what we inherit—it’s what we carry forward, stitch by stitch, story by story.
Sometimes I still miss her with an ache that feels unbearable. Other times, I smile so wide remembering her that it feels like she’s right beside me. That’s the thing about grief—it doesn’t have an end date. It moves in and out, like tides. It softens, then sharpens, then softens again.
If you’re grieving, I want to tell you this: you’re not doing it wrong. There’s no timetable. No deadline. No “back to normal.” There’s only forward, and forward will look different for everyone.
Grief is not a sentence. It’s a season. And seasons change. Not because we forget, but because we learn how to carry it differently.
My grandmother used to say that time was a circle, not a line. I didn’t understand that as a child. Now I think I do.
Love doesn’t end. It becomes something else—something invisible, maybe, but no less real.
And when I reach for her crochet hook, when I hum her lullaby, when I sit with my own daughter and tell her the stories she once told me—I know she’s still here.
Not in the same way.
But still.
Here.
by Nikki Pennington 
by Kelli Bachara 
