The Chaos of Standing Still

by Jessica Brody

Grief isn’t an active emotion. It’s not something you do. It’s something that happens to you. It’s 100 percent passive. It’s a tornado that rips your house from the ground, right off its foundation, twisting it around and around, before dropping it haphazardly back down to the earth. Sure, you’re still in the same place, but everything has been destroyed. The windows face the wrong way. The china has fallen from the cabinets and smashed to the floor. The furniture is upside down. And you’re standing in the middle of it all, wondering what happened. Wondering how you’re ever going to put it all back together again.

“If you don’t control the grief, it will eventually control you.”