Grief in Motion: What Survival Looked Like
This was one of the first stories I ever wrote when I began trying to make sense of how loss moves through a life – not in grand, dramatic pauses, but in the ordinary moments that keep moving going ahead, even when you’re not ready. I didn’t know how to talk about grief back then, I just knew how it felt: heavy, relentless, and strangely mundane.
This is what survival looked like.
The First Loss
Uncle Tim died when I was in ninth grade – the first of four losses that would shape my high school years. He was one of my mom’s youngest brother’s, along his twin Tom. Uncle Tim was killed in a tragic accident after an argument with a friend and a gun that should have never been there.
The Monday after he was buried, Mom went back to her classroom. She taught science to sixth graders with swollen eyes and a heart that had just broken open. I went back too, sitting at my desk, staring down at my color-coded folders and textbooks – just hoping not to be called on.
It was so soon. Too soon, probably. But we just kept living – because that’s what you do. No one gave us a script for grief, so we showed up. We went to work, went to class, and packed lunches like everything hadn’t stopped.
That’s how I learned: grief wasn’t something we *did*. It was something we carried while doing everything else.
Grief in the Clearance Aisle
Less than two years later, the summer after my sophomore year, uncle John died of AIDS. By then, the disease had run its course. We’d known it was coming, but knowing didn’t make it any easier.
The week he died, we went shopping at Yieldings. Florescent lights buzzed overhead. Sales signs screamed *25% OFF!* from the racks surrounding us. We bumped into one of mom’s coworkers near the dresses.
“What are y’all shopping for” – the woman asked, smiling.
“My brother’s funeral. We need funeral dresses and shoes,” Mom replied, holding up a black dress.
The lady froze, then stammered, “Oh I’m…so sorry.”
I remember thinking – she didn’t even know that John had been sick, let alone that he had died of complications related to AIDS. In the South, in the 1990’s, silence wasn’t a choice – it was survival. I learned early the cost of secrecy, pretending that you’re not losing someone right in front of you.
Grief wasn’t a detour. it was just another errand.
“Dammit, John”; Truth in the Cereal Aisle
And I remember the week Uncle John died. Erica and I were at the grocery store with our mom – just picking up something, I don’t even remember what. We started talking about that Uncle John was going to die soon. It wasn’t a distant possibility anymore. It was happening.
At one point, my mom said, almost to herself ” Dammit John, just go.”
I remember saying, “Mom…” Part surprise, part protest.
And she said, “It’s time. He’s so sick.”
It was jarring. But it was honest.
And that same night – still wearing the weight of that moment – we ran into a friend and her mom. My mom let Erica, and I go home with them to make pizza for dinner. Just like that.
Grief and normalcy side by side. A slice of something ordinary in the middle of the hardest week of our lives.
That’s how grief lived in our family – spoken out loud, even when the words were not pretty. We didn’t sugarcoat loss. We lived with it in real time.
The Rule of Showing Up
By senior year, when Uncle Todd died, grief had become a language I spoke fluently. I went back to school the Monday after his funeral – not because I was okay, but because grief had already woven itself into our days long before the end came.
The night he died, I didn’t want to go to a movie with Erica and a friend. I was too sad to pretend I wasn’t. My mom looked at me and said, “Tara, he can help you more now than he ever could while he was here”. And somehow that felt true. Another life lost to AIDS. Another goodbye. And still- college applications awaited. Life didn’t pause. It never did.
Love, Stubbornly Alive
We didn’t do candlelight vigils, or poetic goodbyes. We did last minute funeral outfits and grocery runs and *I can’t – believe – we’re – still – doing – this* eye rolls. The stress was constant, like background noise we forgot how to turn off. We still took the time to laugh when it felt wildly inappropriate though.
Back then, I thought strength meant holding it all together. Now I know it sometimes looks like showing up sleep-deprived, emotionally fried, running on caffeine and sarcasm, and that’s enough.
Where does your grief live when no one is watching?
In the cereal aisle? In the middle of a conversation with a coworker? Or with a friend?
I’d love to hear where it shows up for you. Leave a comment below.
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*Some names and details have been changed or abbreviated to honor the privacy of those I’ve loved and lost.
