Lake Michigan – December 2025. Photo by author.
The pain of ordinary days is where grief actually lives. Anniversaries get language. Holidays get permission. Birthdays have witnesses. Ordinary days are the long haul. They’re the place where love proves it isn’t dependent on ceremony.
The long work is showing up on those ordinary days that hurt in unremarkable ways. It’s discovering that grief doesn’t just live in certain days – it lives in grocery aisles, in empty hours, in moments where nothing is wrong and everything still is.
And I am doing it. Not heroically. Not neatly. But faithfully. That counts. There’s a wisdom that only comes from these stretches: where I stop asking “why does this still hurt so much” and start remembering “oh… this is the terrain now”. Not as surrender. As knowledge. As familiarity with the path.
The holidays hurt loudly. They announce themselves. I brace. I armor up. But the ordinary days? They’re sneaky. They slip past the guard I didn’t realize I’d lowered once the calendar stopped shouting. There’s no ritual for them, no advanced notice that says today will hurt. And yet – there it is. A steady beat on my chest in rhythm with the waves breaking on the shore. Melancholy with stamina.
This is when I’m drawn to the lake. The stark beauty settles into my bones, mirrors something stripped and honest inside me. There’s also something cruelly honest about this stretch. The decorations are down. The world has moved on. And I’m left with the truth: this is what it’s like to carry her on a random Monday. No witnesses. No scripts. Just me and the ache.
The “winter shore me” is allowed to move slowly. To stare at nothing. To feel the ache without explaining it or fixing it. Even the lake rests under ice for a while. That isn’t giving up. This is how I remain.
Words Can Express 