Time.

"It just takes time."

I'm really starting to hate that sentence.  I hate hearing it.  I hate reading it.  I hate saying it.

I'm not a stranger to grief and loss.  In fact, in the past decade I've lost my mother, my three living grandparents, my mother in law and my husband, so grief and loss and I go back a ways.

Ten years ago, on a Monday morning, my dad called to say that my mom was on her way to the hospital.  My sister, brother in law and I met him there and we were ushered into a room where a team of doctors told us that, despite their best efforts, my mother had died.

Ten years later, I don't miss my mother any less than I did the day we walked out of that room.  In fact, I miss her more because there are so many things in our lives that she wasn't here for.

So much of our lives are measured in time.  Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years...We are constantly waiting for something and we measure that wait in time.  

Birthdays, anniversaries, concerts, last day of school, vacations, retirement (2315 days until I am able to, in case you were wondering.). 

Usually, fun stuff.

When my mom died, I was told "it just takes time".  

And when my husband died, I was told "it just takes time".

Time for what, exactly?

For it to hurt less?  For me to miss him less?  For that empty feeling to go away?

I don't see that happening.

Grief doesn't end.  It may change shapes, but it's always there.

We change,

I saw this meme about grief. There was a marble in a jar.  At first the marble was huge and barely fit in the jar, but as time moved on, the jar grew around the marble.  The marble was the same size.

The marble is grief and we are the jar (just in case you didn't see where this was going).

Do I expect to still want to sleep my day away in 5 years?
Probably not EVERY day.

Will I still have a mini meltdown in ShopRite when I realize that I don't need to buy a gallon of milk and can get by with a quart instead?
I hope not, but anything is possible.

Will I still cry when I hear our wedding song when it comes up on shuffle on one of the many playlists we made with each other over the years?
I mean, it's our wedding song.  I'm not made of stone, you know.

So, it's not that we need time to "get over it" or "move past it" (and p.s. - don't ever say either of those to someone who is dealing with the loss of a loved one - not that you would, of course, because y'all are lovely), we need time to adjust, get used to it and grow around our grief.

And like everything it life, you can't rush it.

What you can do though, is not tell someone in the beginning of their grief that it takes time.

Because we know.