Gentle support through grief, growth, and life’s in-between seasons
Category: Sitting With Grief
When you begin learning that grief doesn’t need to be rushed or fixed.
This space is about:
– allowing grief to exist
– giving yourself permission to feel
– learning to sit with the silence
Deneen Stone announces the publication of her book “I’m With You—Navigating Inside the Fog of Grief,” available on Amazon. It aims to support individuals navigating their grief journey without dictating how they should feel. Thank you for your support.
I am proud to share that I’m With You—Navigating Inside the Fog of Grief is officially published and now available on Amazon.
I wrote this book for the person trying to find their way through grief—not to tell them how they should grieve, but to sit beside them while they do.
You have to feel what you feel, how you feel it, and when you feel it. No one can take that from you, and no one should ask you to do more.
There’s a kind of quiet that grief brings that’s hard to explain.
It isn’t just silence—it’s the space where everything that used to be… isn’t.
And somehow, that space can feel heavier than words.
Quiet used to feel different.
It used to feel like a break. A moment to breathe. A space you could settle into without thinking twice.
It felt comfortable. Familiar. Almost welcome.
But now…
quiet feels different.
Awkward. Loud. Lonely.
Like something is missing.
Like it’s no longer a place you want to be.
🌿 When quiet changes
Grief changes the way quiet feels.
What used to feel like rest now feels like something you have to sit inside.
What used to feel peaceful now feels heavy.
Because the quiet isn’t just quiet anymore.
It’s where the absence shows up the most.
And somehow, even without a single voice in the room…
it feels louder than anything you’ve ever heard.
🌿 The space where everything used to be
It shows up in the smallest moments.
Coming home from work, reaching for the door, already thinking about how you’re going to decompress the day.
The conversation that used to be waiting for you.
The “you won’t believe what happened today…” The shared laughter. The venting.
The way someone else held pieces of your day with you.
And now…
There’s nothing.
There was a time when your life didn’t just belong to you.
It was shared.
Dreams spoken out loud. Plans built together. Late-night conversations that stretched longer than they should have.
The kind where you said things you’ve never told anyone else.
Secrets. Fears. Hopes.
Held by one person. Trusted with everything.
And then one day…
The conversations end.
Not slowly. Not with warning.
They just stop.
And somehow, even though the voices are gone…
the quiet feels louder than anything you’ve ever heard.
🌿 Trying to fill the silence
It’s hard to explain.
How can silence feel this big?
How can something that isn’t there take up so much space?
Sometimes it feels like the quiet is almost laughing at you.
Sitting in the room, reminding you of everything that used to be there.
You try to fill it.
Turn on the TV. Scroll your phone. Call someone.
But it doesn’t touch it.
Because this kind of quiet isn’t about noise.
It’s about absence.
There’s a part of this quiet that’s hard to explain.
It’s not just that it’s silent. It’s that it’s huge.
It carries the weight of someone being gone.
And no matter how you try to describe it… it never feels like enough.
🌿 Reaching for what’s still there
There were moments you didn’t even realize you were building.
Conversations. Reactions. The way they would respond without you having to think about it.
All of it now…
lives in your memory.
And sometimes, you find yourself reaching for it.
Asking quietly:
What would they say right now?
Trying to hear their voice. Trying to replay how they would respond.
And for a second… you can almost get there.
But it’s not the same.
It will never be the same.
Because this quiet doesn’t give anything back.
It makes you rely on memory for something that used to be alive.
🌿 When noise doesn’t help
There was a time I tried to drown it out.
The quiet felt like it was mocking me, and I just wanted it to stop.
So I filled it.
Loud music— the kind I don’t even listen to.
Hard rock, volume all the way up.
Completely out of my character.
But in that moment, it felt like the only way to make the quiet go away.
And for a second…
I thought it might work.
But what’s almost unbelievable—
the louder I turned the music, the louder the quiet felt.
It never left.
Not once.
And I remember thinking,
WTH… how is that even possible?
Because it made me realize something I didn’t want to accept.
This kind of quiet…
isn’t something you can drown out.
You can try.
You can fill the space. Create noise. Distract yourself.
And for a moment, it might feel like it’s working.
But underneath all of that—
the quiet is still there.
And maybe some people have figured out how to live with it.
If they have…
I think we all wish they would tell us how.
🌿 A gentle place to land
What I’m learning—slowly—
is that this quiet doesn’t go away.
It changes.
Not because you forced it to. Not because you finally figured out how to escape it.
But because, over time…
you begin to understand what it is.
The quiet feels loud because it’s filled with everything that once had a place to go.
Your words. Your thoughts. Your conversations.
Your love.
And that love didn’t disappear.
It just doesn’t have the same place to land anymore.
You’re not doing it wrong because you can’t fill the quiet.
You’re sitting in something that was never meant to be easy.
And maybe, over time—
the quiet won’t feel like it’s mocking you.
It will feel like space.
Not empty.
Just different.
“The quiet isn’t empty— it’s filled with everything that once had a place to go.”
However the quiet shows up for you today… you don’t have to fight it alone.
