When Grief Wears Everyday Clothes

Grief isn't always sharp; sometimes it's soft, slow, and stitched quietly into the everyday.

I was scrolling Facebook Marketplace for new-to-me office chairs, I still haven’t found them, when I came across a faded, brown, formal wooden-framed armchair. The kind my Grandpa would have had.

A pang of loss hit me: missing him, sadness that he never knew me as an adult.
It lingered for an hour or so, then packed itself away again into the space where my memories of him live.

A 20-year-old grief.

🌱 “Even when grief wears everyday clothes, recognising its quiet presence can help us walk alongside it with more kindness.”

It got me thinking about how we live alongside grief in daily life. Not just the kind tied to funerals or anniversaries, but the quiet, lingering grief woven into the ordinary.

Invisible grief. Different types of grief.

Sometimes, grief begins before a loss is final.

You may be sitting beside someone with dementia or illness, watching memories, personality, and connection slowly dissolve. We watch a capable, strong adult become vulnerable, dependent and unsure. We have to support and be there in the moment whilst experiencing a slow loss.

Sometimes, the grief is circumstantial.

Couples, families, or friends may separate emotionally but remain physically close, often for financial reasons, navigating daily life through tension or silence. Sharing space and toothpaste with someone you’ve emotionally lost is its own kind of ache.

The grief of growth.

Our child may still need a hug now and again, a safety net of love. But their frame becomes strong, solid, and their eyes level with ours. No longer do soft limbs fold around us, entire weight sinking in; no longer do we carry them, rocking instinctively. We champion children’s growth and independence, but feel a soft grief for the days now gone.

🌱 “There are many kinds of love and many kinds of grief. They don’t need to be ranked or justified. Just given space.”

We scroll through friends’ stories on social media. Different friends from different times in our lives.
Walking dogs at sunset, paddling in the Caribbean, holding smiling babies, kayaking, laughing at concerts, sharing photos of meals.

Glimpses of lives we once knew intricately but haven’t touched for weeks, months, sometimes years. There is no bad feeling, disappointment or judgment. Time has passed, lives are busy, and regular contact is a luxury. But that doesn't mean there is sadness for what once was.

As a therapist, I often say goodbye to clients, knowing I may never see them again. Like teachers, youth workers, support workers, and healthcare providers, I’m lucky to witness a chapter, but never the full story.

Sometimes we experience a loss of someone we never met; they may have inspired us with their music, entertained us on screen, or written a poem that got us through a hard time.

Grief can be in the ending of a life stage: leaving a school, a job, a familiar street, a community that once felt like home.

Sometimes it’s the goodbye to an object:
The sofa you cradled your newborn on.
The pen that got you through exams.
The plant gifted by a neighbour long ago moved away.
The shoes that marked a milestone at work.

Sometimes we grieve for things we never had:
The parent we never knew.
The child we never held.
The world we haven’t seen.

In the same way, there are many kinds of love, there are many kinds of grief.
They don’t need to be compared or ranked.
They need space and a little kindness.

We often treat grief as if it’s dramatic, final, something we should eventually ‘get over.’
But that’s not how grief works.
It’s layered, lingering, evolving.
Like love, we need better words for it.
Perhaps that's why we turn to music, art, and poetry, because sometimes, words just aren’t enough.

🌱 “We often treat grief like something to get over. But grief doesn’t end - it evolves.”

Even when grief wears everyday clothes, recognising its quiet presence can help us walk alongside it with more kindness, to ourselves, and others.

🪴 Reflective Prompt

What form of quiet grief are you carrying right now?