I think that grief is like the mother of all emotions. It contains  all of the others. It’s complex. And full. And inescapable.

Sometimes it feels like a dark and dense mass. A black shape that finds its way to my chest. When it’s there it doesn’t do anything. It just sits. But it takes up space. Where it is, nothing else can be.

Sometimes this shape is hollow. A white shape. At first, I thought it was a space waiting to be filled. It’s not. It’s empty, but it cannot take anything. This hollow shape also takes up space in my chest.

The thing with grief is that it can be silent. It can also be deafening. But it can’t be truly ignored. We try. We move on. We forget. We accept. Despite the effort, the space in the chest is already taken, whether we see it, feel it or not.

And it’s cumulative. Grief always makes space for grief. It’s not replaced. It’s a collection of occupied space.

Grief is not the thing that makes me cry. It’s the thing that doesn’t allow me to.