I still randomly gmail my dear beloved best friend who died of melanoma 18 years ago. It goes into the ether. I hope gmail doesn't reassign his account to someone else for inactivity, they will get my "thinking of you, miss you, this thing happened that you would have found hilarious" emails.

Grief is a very difficult emotion and I like the analogy of it being a deep ocean. When you experience profound grief you are dropped almost immediately into that ocean. If it is your rodeo with grief you don’t know how to swim. You don’t know where you are. You are in an endless night of depth. You may not even know you are in the ocean at first. Your brain is simply drowning. Some constant in the mind’s universe has changed. Abruptly.

I don’t believe, completely in the narrative of American men not taking stuff out, but it is a factor. The underlying issue for not talking stuff out is ensuring you feel understood. That you are not alone in this experience. That grief is okay, normal. That you have been taught a life philosophy that encompasses grief. That it can exist without consuming all. It helps anchor these powerful emotions. There are other ways to achieve this, everyone will have their own strategies. I do think you have to have a philosophy and process to handle grief however you do it.

I believe in acknowledging grief and practicing Stoic style thinking to stay present. It really helps me to acknowledge the moment is precious. Wrenching on a car with a buddy. Sitting at the dinner table with your family. Acknowledge how special that is. That it won’t last forever. Cannot. Tell them and yourself how special it is. Visualize life without that moment anymore. Bring a little grief to the every day and present as a part of our human condition. It is okay! It is not spoiling the moment if you are using that emotion to fully experience the present.

Grief as many people experience and process it is almost always the past. Even simply acknowledging it as the powerful force in our mind can help tame it. Observe the grief so to speak, see it as an observer. I am glad you found your way. Everyone should think about grief and talk about it. Just part of us.

I love to miss people. I think missing is a complete and beautiful expression of love, just as much as having.

When I first encountered this description of grief it really resonated, but it's felt less poignant as I've gotten older, partly because I find myself grieving people who still live, and are simply too different from how I remember them or how I thought I knew them to support the relationships I want to have with them.

I suppose the principle still holds: the "love" I have for those versions of those people cannot go anywhere, but that feels dissonant with not wanting to know these people as they are, or knowing the relationship I'm wishing for is otherwise ill-fated. In either case, the relationship cannot continue, and that drive the sense of grief anyway, so maybe I'm just splitting hairs.

Such is the complex nature of grief and of human relationships, I suppose.

Love is best shared. Grief can be a powerful tool to help build up healthy new relationships.

"what is grief if not love persevering"