Give It the Time It Needs

A reflection on grief, five years later

At a yoga class on the five-year anniversary of my dad’s death, I pulled a card from the front of the room. I didn’t overthink it—I just reached in and grabbed one. It read: “Give it the time it needs.”

Simple. Clear. And it cracked something open in me.

Five years in, and I still sometimes wonder, Shouldn’t this feel different by now? Shouldn’t I be farther along?

But that card reminded me: there is no timeline. There is no “farther along.” There’s just the winding road of grief, full of unexpected turns, long stretches of quiet, and sudden detours that take your breath away.

We live in a culture that wants grief to be linear. Something to “process and move through.” A stage to complete. A thing to fix. But the truth is—grief doesn’t resolve neatly. It doesn’t care about anniversaries, or how much time has passed, or whether the people around us are ready for us to “move on.” Grief simply is.

It shifts, it softens, it surprises. Some days, it feels like a dull ache; other days, it hits like a tidal wave. And every version of it is valid.

That card—“give it the time it needs”—felt like permission. Permission to stop measuring my feelings against someone else’s idea of how long this should take. Permission to make space for the longing that still lives in me. Permission to remember that love doesn’t disappear, and neither does grief. They change shape together.

If you’re grieving—whether it’s been five weeks or five years—this is your reminder: there’s no deadline. There’s no final destination. Grief is a companion, not a journey to complete. Let it be messy. Let it surprise you. Let it sit beside your joy, your growth, your daily life. And most of all, give it the time it needs.

Because that’s the only way through—with tenderness, patience, and the truth that grief is not something to “get over.” It’s something to carry, something that becomes part of us, something that deserves time. Always.