I don’t need a specific month to make me aware of how I carry grief in my body. In many ways, I have become an expert at knowing. In fact, we all have. Anyone who has ever endured significant loss… loss of partner/spouse, parent, child, pet, job, relationship… knows what it is to grieve.
And many of us are also well aware of how it is we navigate grief when it comes.
August is observed as National Grief Awareness Month. For me… it is also “Death Month,” the month in which my husband, Peter’s body was found two years ago. And when that anniversary hits this year, unsurmountable waves of grief will most likely accompany it.
Yet it’s not only at anniversaries, or holidays when the grief descends. It truly never leaves us. It has made a home within us and is now our constant companion… whether we like it or not. Grief never goes away, it merely changes.
And for me, two years out, I can honestly say that my grief and the ways I navigate it have changed.
The frequently with which I find myself sobbing uncontrollably has diminished.
The ways in which my mind and body have protected me from holding too much of the pain have ebbed and flowed.
The desire to stay in bed all day, skip the shower, deprive my body of the nutrients it needs to go on… these have mostly disappeared. I say “mostly” because there are still many days where I find myself wanting nothing more than to keep my head on the pillow, wrap up in a quilt, and stare helplessly across our bed at Peter’s urn on the bedside table.
And there are days now, much more frequently than before, where I find myself living a life I never thought possible without Peter. I am living, laughing, and loving in ways that at times surprise even me.
And I am living, laughing, and loving in ways that make others uncomfortable.
Just as the exhibiting of my grief made people uncomfortable, there seems to be an equal amount of unease when they see me living as I am.
And perhaps that’s what a Grief Awareness Month is for. It’s not to make those of us steeped in grief more aware of our current state. It is to help those around us to let go of their rigid understandings of how grief should look and how it should be navigated.
Bringing Grief Awareness means teaching people about the distinct ties between the depth of our grief and the affects it has on our mental and physical health. It means offering people new ways to view grief beyond what has been deemed “normal” or “expected.” And it means showing them that there is no one “right” way to grieve.
In my book, “Grieving Differently: Queering the Stages of Grief,” I show the reader what my experience has been as I grieve Peter’s tragic death. I place my own journey against what many have considered to be the standard stages of grief as birthed by renewed psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross and “queer it.”
I look at it from other angles, from the edges, to see how my own experience fails to fall neatly into Kübler-Ross’ stages. I question who those stages were designed for and who they leave out. I discuss the expectations many hold for moving through them and encourage the reader to embody and live their grief in ways that are authentic and true to them.
I never set out to publish a book about my grief journey and what it has taught me. And from those reading some of my early work, I have heard how beneficial it is to share the experience.
And I am so excited to do just that.
“Grieving Differently: Queering the Stages of Grief” is set to release on October 6, 2026. I hope you will consider picking up a copy or asking for it at your local library. And I hope it speaks to the grief you carry in such a way that brings you to give yourself permission to grief outside of the “normal” stages.
Visit GrievingDifferently.com to learn more about the journey. There you can sign up for my newsletters and (very soon) pre-order the book. And find ways for us to work together so that I may be a companion on your journey.
No matter what you are grieving… and no matter how you are doing it… know that you are not grieving wrong. And you are not alone.
Be gentle with yourself!
Timoth