Grief That Waits in Silence

I walked past a room for years. I could feel it as I walked past. There was a weight in the door, a slight resistance in the morning, a particular quality to certain silences that told me something was in there waiting. I had learned, as doctors learn, to schedule my life around the rooms I was not ready to enter.

The room was not going anywhere.

One day I walked in. Not because I was ready, not because I had found the courage, but because life arranged a moment of presence that made the door too close to avoid. What I found in the room was not what I had feared. It was quieter than that. It was old. It asked for very little. It mostly just wanted to be acknowledged.

Grief is not the worst thing. The carrying of unacknowledged grief is worse.

You do not have to stay in the room long. Walk in. Nod at what is there. You will know what it is. Then, if you need to, you may walk back out. But walk in once this week. Just once.

— Job