Things grew quiet after the funeral. The people, the noise, and the flowers all disappeared.
Everyone had figured out how to go back to normal, everyone except for me. It felt like I had one foot stuck in sadness, unwilling to move even an inch. I knew in my bones that nothing would ever be the same without her. I couldn’t relate to others anymore, and that was a side of grief I was not expecting. My whole world had just been obliterated, and everyone wanted to return to “normal." What does normal even mean?
I wasn’t surviving grief. I was resentful of the universe for taking her away. I was livid at time for not standing still. I refused to accept the fact that she couldn’t live the life she deserved. I was guilty that I couldn't give her a hug. I was sad that I had to miss her. But most of all, I regret that the day we meet again will forever be too far away.
Acceptance is not characterized by happiness or contentment, but rather by a sense of peace and a willingness to move on. As time passes and acceptance grows, activity in the prefrontal cortex increases. The prefrontal cortex helps you process, reframe, and make sense of the loss. During this stage, the brain shifts from pure emotional pain to rational understanding and emotional regulation.
I tried waiting for this pain to eat itself alive, to expel itself from my heart. But it never did. This vicious cycle of grief tormented me for too long. My thoughts could not move an inch without bumping into some memory of her. I was losing my balance on a tightrope, trying to remember her and let her go at the same time. How sad was it to face the future without the one I had planned it all with? All I wanted was to stare at a photograph of us long enough, imagining we were still in that moment, together. I was drowning in my own ocean of tears, dancing through my own delusions, masking my own hurt for the sake of others.
I couldn’t bring myself to care about the acceptance part of this process. Didn’t care how many people told me that grief was an extension of love. There wasn’t a single silver lining in any of this. My best friend was dead. Not something a lot of twenty-something year olds go through.
Acceptance doesn't mean that grieving stops, but rather that one has found a way to live with the loss and has begun to adjust to their new reality. Sadness, anger, and other emotions related to the loss can still be present in this stage, but the intensity of these emotions may have diminished. Individuals in this stage may also seek new meaning and purpose in their lives.
We were in the middle of a Michigan summer, notorious for her vicious thunderstorms. As a kid, I always disliked thunderstorms because it meant you had to stay cooped up inside. But this was the summer I started to appreciate the beauty of a wild thunderstorm. I would look out my window and watch how Mother Nature held the world at her mercy. Her fingers traced patterns in the sky, swirling and brewing the heavy grey clouds right before my eyes. The first crack of thunder would shatter any silence, a low growl rising from the depths of her throat. I could hear her heart beating in rhythm with the storm, as the trees bent beneath her force. I would think to myself how lucky Mother Nature is to have the whole world to use as an emotional outlet. When the storm came to a hush, everything looked more peaceful, even the air smelled pleasant.
“KATIE, COME OUT HERE!” The piercing yell interrupted my circulating thoughts and forced me up from my bed. I ran down the stairs, thinking something was wrong or something bad had happened in the storm. I noticed my front door was wide open when I reached the last step. Cautiously, I walked outside to see my entire family in our front yard. I called out to them, asking what they were doing outside, when I finally noticed their eyes glued to the sky above us.
That’s when I saw it. A rainbow. Sitting directly above our house, curling in the sky, painting vivid colors in its wake. Each hue was a whisper of the storm’s retreat, a promise of calm after the chaos, as if Mother Nature herself exhaled a sigh of relief.
At that moment, I was frozen, staring at the arc of colors stretching from one end of the earth to the other. I could feel the tears welling in my eyes, threatening to explode with all their might. I blinked, the sting of my tears mingling with the cool breeze, but it wasn’t the wind that made me shiver; it was the feeling that came with seeing the rainbow. There was something deeper floating through the air, something that vaguely reminded me of hope.
In the softest whisper of the wind, something quietly touched the edges of my heart with a warm embrace. I wasn’t expecting it, nor was I prepared. I didn’t even know how to find it, how to unlock the door to peace when every step forward had felt like a gnawing ache in my bones.
But now, standing there, bathed in the afterglow of a storm that had passed, I realized Acceptance had been there all along, waiting. She had been a slight hum, existing beneath the surface, never straying too far. Acceptance did not do grand gestures; she was not an explosion of revelation, but rather, she showed herself quietly, patiently.
Acceptance showed herself like the rainbow hanging in the sky on that fateful summer day. Unwavering, as if she had always belonged there.
Acceptance does not indicate the absence of emotional significance or memory of the person lost; rather, it reflects the individual's ability to integrate the loss into their ongoing life narrative. Psychological research has shown that the grieving process is not strictly linear, as individuals often cycle between different emotional states over time, including revisiting earlier stages such as denial or anger.
Acceptance didn’t demand anything from me. She didn’t ask me to forget my best friend, didn’t ask me to stop feeling the pain of my loss. No, Acceptance didn’t ask me to let go of anything, only to hold both the love and the sorrow at once, to live with them, side by side. The storm wasn’t over, not completely; the wound wasn’t fully healed. But Acceptance was a soft melody inside me, not urging me to forget or move on, but to take a step forward.
I took a deep breath, and for the first time in a long while, it didn’t feel like the weight of grief was swallowing me whole. It felt like I could breathe again—not because it was easy, but because it was possible. The rainbow, though fleeting, had shown me that it was possible to move forward, to find a way to live with both the storm and the calm, the sorrow and the hope.