16/09/2026
Someone recently asked me something I hear more often than people might realise:
“Why does my grief feel like it’s getting worse instead of better? I felt like I was coping better six months ago than I am now.”
They were more than a year into their loss, and they couldn’t understand why things seemed to be getting harder rather than easier.
The truth is, grief doesn’t always hurt the most at the beginning.
In those first days, weeks and months, there can be so much happening. There are arrangements to make, paperwork to deal with, decisions to make, people calling, cards arriving and family and friends checking in.
Sometimes you’re not really processing what has happened at all. You’re simply getting through one hour, one day at a time.
And then, slowly, life becomes quieter.
The calls become less frequent. People return to their own routines. The practical things have been dealt with, and from the outside, people may assume that you’re beginning to “move on.”
But sometimes, this is when the reality of your loss truly begins to sink in.
They really aren’t coming back.
You begin to realise that grief isn’t something you simply complete and then return to the life you had before. Life has changed, and somehow you have to learn how to live in a world without someone you never imagined being without.
That realisation can hurt enormously.
There’s also the exhaustion that comes from carrying grief for months, or even years. The strength that carried you through those early days isn’t endless. Sometimes grief hasn’t become worse , you’re simply tired from carrying the weight of missing someone, every single day.
So whether you’re 8 months, 14 months, 18 months, two years or even longer into your grief, please don’t judge your healing by how much you cried then compared with how much you cry now.
Grief doesn’t follow a straight line.
There will be days when you feel stronger and days when the loss feels incredibly close again. A difficult week, month or season doesn’t undo the progress you’ve made.
It simply means that someone mattered to you so deeply that their absence changed your life.
And learning to live with that absence takes time. 💚