Grief does not ask permission to show up. It arrives when it arrives.

Last night I learned that Jackie died. You might ask: „Who is Jackie?“

She was a bald eagle in Big Bear Valley, California. I never met her personally. I watched her through a camera, the way millions around the world did, as she raised her eaglets through storms and snow. And when the news came that she was gone, I cried.

I did not expect that. It’s not my typical reaction.

She was a wild creature. But then, I know how we humans do this, how we pour ourselves into animals and read our own hearts into theirs.

I know it, and I did it anyway. We have parakeets. Seven of them right now. Over the years we lost some, and every time one was gone, we brought in another to fill the empty perch. Until this year. This year one died and we left the space open. Maybe I was learning that not every loss gets replaced. Some just stay.

But the tears were not only for Jackie.

August fifth was two years since my mother died. In three days it will be my last day at a job I chose to leave, because I could not carry it anymore. And underneath all of it sits a quieter thing that keeps surfacing. The feeling of being in a room and not being seen. Not for who I am. Not for what I actually bring.

Grief does not sort itself into tidy piles. It pools.

A mother.

A job.

A bird I only knew through a screen. It all runs together, and one small loss opens the door for the rest to walk through.

Here is the other thing I have just recently learned. We do not talk about grief. People do not know what to do with you when you are grieving, so they say very little, or they change the subject. Death makes them uncomfortable. I understand it. And still, past a certain age, this is the one thing none of us gets to avoid. We will grieve, and we will be grieved. Pretending otherwise does not spare anyone. It only leaves us alone in it.

And grief is not only about death.

You can grieve a life. The one you had before the move, before the secondment or transfer. Before the country changed and the language changed and the version of you that everyone knew got left at the old address. You can have a roof over your head and a partner with a good job and still wake up mourning something you cannot quite name. The friends who knew your history. The work that told you who you were. The ease of being understood without translating yourself first.

That is grief too. Nobody hands you a condolence card for it. Nobody brings a casserole when what you lost was your own familiar life. So you carry it quietly, and you wonder why you feel so heavy in a life that looks, from the outside, like it is going pretty well.

If that is you, here is what I want you to know. You are not ungrateful. You are grieving. The homesickness that has no name is still real. The old self you miss was real. It counts.

So let it come. Name it if you can. Sit with it if you cannot.

And then, the part nobody tells you. Righting your crown is not a thing you do by Friday afternoon. Some grief takes days. Most takes longer. Months, sometimes. And carried entirely alone, with no one to help you hold it, it can stretch into years and quietly change you. Not exactly into someone bitter. But sometimes into someone smaller. Someone who has learned to expect less and ask for nothing.

My generation was raised on that. Do not make a fuss. Absolutely do not be a burden. Get up, right your crown, keep moving. Handle it on your own, for as long as it takes, and call that strength.

I do not believe that anymore.

Look at the world right now. Wars running. Leaders you cannot trust. So much of it is off balance. Doing everything alone was never the badge we were told it was, and it makes even less sense now. Asking for help is not weakness. It is not failure. It is the thing that actually moves you.

I know, because I finally started asking. And it changed everything.

So here is my permission, and I mean it for you. You do not have to carry this alone. You were never supposed to. Let someone help you hold it.

Then, when you are ready and not one day before, right your crown and move on.