Things Grief Took From Me and What It Gave Me Instead

Feb 24

Grief is a thief. (I love a good rhyme)
It does not ask permission to come in. It shows up, rearranges your life, and leaves you standing there holding pieces you do not recognize.

People talk a lot about what grief teaches us, how it makes us stronger or wiser. That might be true eventually. But first, grief takes. Quietly, aggressively, and without apology.

Here are some of the things grief took from me. And, over time, what it gave me instead.

It took my sense of safety

Before grief, I believed in a certain order to life. If you did the right things, loved the right way, planned carefully enough, you would be mostly protected.

Grief shattered that illusion. It taught me that life can change in a single phone call. (A phone call forever etched in my brain) That control is mostly a story we tell ourselves to sleep at night.

What grief gave me instead was presence. I stopped postponing joy and connection. I learned to say the thing, take the trip, hold the hand longer. When you stop assuming tomorrow is guaranteed, today gets louder and more precious.

It took my old identity

Grief does not just take people. It takes versions of you.

I was no longer who I was before the loss. I could not go back, no matter how badly I wanted to. The world kept asking me to be my old self, while grief quietly erased that blueprint.

What it gave me instead was permission to become someone new. Someone softer in some places and sharper in others. Someone who no longer apologizes for being changed by loss. Reinvention was not a choice. It was survival.

It took my tolerance for nonsense

Small talk became unbearable. Performative busyness lost its appeal. I no longer had the patience for things that drained me just to keep the peace.

Grief stripped away the illusion that everything deserves my energy.

What it gave me instead was clarity. I learned where my yes truly lives and how sacred my no can be. I stopped explaining myself so much. Life is too short to spend it pretending.

It took my relationship with time

Grief warped time in strange ways. Days dragged. Months disappeared. Anniversaries felt both far away and impossibly close.

I stopped trusting the calendar to tell the truth about how I was doing.

What grief gave me instead was rhythm instead of deadlines. I learned that healing is not linear and cannot be scheduled. Some days are heavy for no obvious reason. Others are light and surprising. Both are allowed.

It took my illusions about strength

I thought strength meant holding it together. Being composed. Not falling apart.

Grief laughed at that idea.

It dropped me to my knees. It made me sob in grocery stores and forget words mid sentence. It humbled me in ways I never anticipated.

What it gave me instead was a deeper, quieter strength. The kind that lets you ask for help. The kind that sits with pain without rushing to fix it. The kind that survives.

It took some relationships

Not everyone stayed. Some people disappeared when grief got uncomfortable. Others expected me to grieve on a timeline that felt polite and tidy.

That loss hurt almost as much as the original one.

What grief gave me instead was discernment. I learned who could hold my truth and who could not. I found deeper connections with people who understood that grief is not something you get over, but something you learn to carry.

It took my innocence about pain

I will never again be naive about how deeply loss can cut.

That part of me is gone.

But what grief gave me instead was compassion. Real compassion. Not the kind that rushes in with platitudes, but the kind that sits quietly beside suffering. The kind that does not flinch when things get messy.

Grief took a lot from me. I will never pretend otherwise.

But it also gave me depth, honesty, and a fierce tenderness for what matters. It changed the way I love, the way I listen, and the way I show up in the world.

I would never choose grief.
But I honor who I became because of it.