Sometimes grief appears in the places we least expect.
Not in the cemetery.
Not during the funeral.
Not during the anniversary.
Sometimes grief appears in the grocery store.
You are standing there looking at the puddings… and suddenly you remember how much your mother loved vanilla pudding.
It happened to me the first time I went grocery shopping after my mother died. I stood there staring at the puddings while tears quietly filled my eyes.
And deep inside, I knew this was natural.
It was grief.
Or you walk past your husband’s favorite ice cream and your chest tightens without warning.
Or you hear a song softly playing in the background and, for a moment, your whole body remembers.
That is one of the things people often misunderstand about grief:
Grief does not only live in the big moments.
It lives in the ordinary, everyday moments.
And sometimes those moments can feel incredibly lonely because people don’t “get it.”
Over the years, through my work in grief support and the 11 Principles of Transformation®, I have seen how many grieving individuals question themselves during these experiences.
“Why am I crying here?rdquo;
“Why is this still affecting me?”
“Shouldn’t I be doing better by now?”
Yet perhaps one of the most healing things we can understand is this:
There is nothing wrong with you. This is part of the grieving process.
As grief expert Megan Devine beautifully writes in It’s OK That You’re Not OK:
“Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.”
Grief is one of those things.
Not because healing is impossible.
Not because life cannot hold meaning again.
But because grief is not simply something we “solve.”
Grief is love.
Love remembering.
Love longing.
Love trying to express itself after loss.
The grocery store was never just the grocery store. It was a place that held special memories and now…it’s just different.
That is why everyday places can suddenly become sacred spaces of remembrance.
One of the principles I often teach is that grief needs validation, not judgment.
When we stop criticizing our emotions and begin listening to them with compassion, something within us slowly softens.
Not because the pain disappears.
But because we stop abandoning ourselves inside the pain.
And little by little, we begin learning how to carry love differently.
Perhaps today your grief appeared unexpectedly in an ordinary moment.
If it did, I hope you remember this:
You are not regressing.
You are human.
And love continues to live in the smallest moments of life.
My reflection for you today:
What ordinary moment unexpectedly connects you to someone you love?
From my heart to yours,
Ligia M. Houben
