Grief Doesn't Keep a Schedule

After a death, the people around a grieving person often hold an unspoken timetable. Leave from work is counted in days. Friends check in often for a few weeks, then less. At some point, months or a year later, there is an expectation, rarely said aloud, that the person should be more or less back to normal.

Grief does not follow that timetable. It eases for a week and then returns on an ordinary afternoon, set off by a song, a smell, or familiar handwriting on an old envelope.

The Schedule Belongs to Other People

The timetable mostly serves the people around the grieving person, who need to return to their own lives. That is understandable and not a failing on their part.

The difficulty comes when the grieving person adopts the same timetable as a standard for themselves. Then there are two burdens instead of one: the grief itself, and a sense of falling behind at grieving. The second burden can be set down, because the schedule it measures against was never a reliable measure.

Chapter 16: Remain Where You Are

"Having emptied yourself of everything, remain where you are" (chapter 16, Walter Gorn Old, 1904).

Chapter 16 is about things returning to their source, and its first instruction is not to hurry. In grief, remaining where one is means letting the present state be what it is, rather than comparing it with where one is supposed to be by now.

The chapter continues: "All things spring forth into activity with one accord, and whither do we see them return? After blossoming for a while, everything dies down to its root." It describes a pattern of growth and return, and it attaches no deadline to any part of it.

The chapter calls this return "peace." That should not be read as saying a death ought to feel peaceful to the people left behind. The chapter is describing how things move, not instructing anyone how to feel about a particular loss.

Chapter 50 Speaks Plainly

"Birth is an exit; death an entrance" (chapter 50, C. Spurgeon Medhurst, 1905).

Whatever one makes of the line, it does not avoid the subject. The Tao Te Ching talks about death directly and without softening words. In many households and workplaces, death is talked around, and the grieving person ends up managing other people's discomfort as well as their own loss.

For some people, plainer words make it easier: saying "died" rather than a softer phrase, and saying the person's name in conversation, can make it easier for everyone to talk about the person at all.

From the Tao

Having emptied yourself of everything, remain where you are. — Tao Te Ching, chapter 16 (Walter Gorn Old, 1904)

When It Comes Back, That Is Not Going Backwards

Grief tends to return on anniversaries, birthdays and holidays, and also at unremarkable moments. A hard week a year later can feel like a loss of progress.

In chapter 16 the movement is cyclical: things go out and they return. A return of grief after a quiet stretch fits that pattern. It is not necessarily a sign that something has gone wrong.

When to Look for More Help

Some grief needs more than time and patience. If many months pass and daily life has not begun to return — work, eating, sleep, contact with other people — a doctor or a grief counsellor is worth seeing. If there are thoughts of not wanting to live, reach out now: in the United States, call or text 988, or tell someone close to you today.

A Small Thing to Try

For someone who is grieving: set aside a short, regular time, perhaps ten minutes once a week, for the person who died. Look at a photograph, write a few lines to them, or say their name aloud. It gives grief a place to go other than the unplanned moments, and it does not require the grief to be finished.

For someone supporting a person who is grieving: note the dates that others tend to forget, such as three months on, the first birthday, the first anniversary. On those days, send a short message that uses the name of the person who died.