Grief doesn't follow rules
Grief doesn’t arrive on a schedule or follow stages, and there is no “right” way to experience it. It moves in its own time and in its own way, and whatever you feel, or don’t feel, is a valid response to loss.
Grief is an emotional energy that wants to move through us when something we cherish is lost. It can't be controlled or made to follow rules, no matter how much we might want it to.
It doesn't arrive on time , and it doesn't leave on a schedule. There is no "correct" way to grieve. What you feel, or don't feel, is valid. You don't have to have answers.
You've probably heard of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. These ideas can be useful sometimes, but you don't need to be imprisoned by them. Your grief most likely won't follow that pattern. Grief theories are constantly evolving, and what matters most is honouring the actual experience rather than trying to match it to a model someone created decades ago.
The writer Martin Prechtel puts it this way: grief is actually praise for what we've lost. It's the natural way love honours what it misses. The extent we can allow ourselves to grieve is also the extent we can allow ourselves to love.
Stories of animals mourning their dead have been recorded since at least the first century AD. Grief exists across species, across cultures, across thousands of years of human history. For most of that history, it has been held communally , through rituals, designated mourning periods, and extended family networks. You are not failing at something others find easy. Grief has always been hard. The difference is that most of us are now expected to handle it alone and quietly.
"There are so many different feelings that the word grief encompasses and all of these feelings are valid… you just have to go with the waves and process it, how your body and mind decide to process it." , S, 22, who lost her brother