Sometimes it feels like the world has left you behind. When your world comes crashing down around you, yet the sun still moves across the sky, marking the beginning and end of new days, and traffic still builds and eases as neighbors, coworkers, and strangers go to work, run errands, visit loved ones, and return home again. Somehow my world has halted, and everyone else keeps moving forward as if nothing happened. Sometimes I wonder, how can they continue on when my feet are glued to a period of time that took place last week, last month, last year…?

How can they continue while I’m stuck?

Why can’t they slow down and wait for me to catch up?

How long will I be behind?

I don’t know how long I’ll be behind. Perhaps a few weeks, maybe more like months; it might take years… I’m starting to wonder if that’s the point. My feet keep moving, but my thoughts are in the past, dwelling on memories of people and places of times gone by.

How can it be in the past?

How can it be done and gone, a chapter closed that I wasn’t finished writing?

I still want to finish that chapter…

It takes time to process. That’s the part no one tells you about. It takes time, and no one knows how long, to allow the emotions to ebb and flow through you—okay, feeling strong one moment and an emotional disaster the next. It’s part of the process. The process of coming to terms with your reality, of allowing grief and sorrow to turn bittersweet and then, eventually, hopefully, become fond memories.

It requires giving yourself permission to sit with your emotions, to feel them to their full extent and recognize their presence. I think that’s why it feels like time slows down and you become stuck in the past. How can you begin to heal if you don’t know what’s hurting and why?

It requires time to find what this new chapter will look like. Perhaps that’s why it’s so painful: grief and change demand growth, often when you weren’t ready for it. It takes the pen out of your hand in the book of life you were writing and decides the closing lines.

But I thought that was my pen…

I thought I write my story…

Sometimes our story gets written for us. It is the growth of coming to understand that reality, and learning to accept it that’s painful. Perhaps the hardest part is we can’t change those closing lines. They were written for us. We can only pick up the pen and decide what to write next.

It is said that flowers will bloom from ashes. I believe we can view life much the same way. When there is nothing left, we have been given the opportunity to choose the flowers we plant in the ashes.

Grief forced me to slow down and fall behind the pace of this world. I felt lost and alone, unsure what was to come next. The flowers of my new garden were buried under the ashes. I had no desire to catch up with the world around me. I’ve learned that’s okay. Because what I’ve gained in the slow silence is peace and new growth.

I gave myself time to be with my thoughts, to feel my emotions, and to connect with loved ones. I’ve been cleaning up the ash. And though the ash is not yet gone, I have already started to sow my seeds.

As difficult as grief is, I’ve learned what is truly important to me, and the seeds I’m planting are lifestyle and character changes that strengthen and uphold the values that have been solidified in me.

In the midst of it all, I’m thankful for the ashes, as they’ve cleared the way to plant a new garden.