Curate, connect, and discover
Grief never really dies, but it does hide.
No longer will it make itself known, beating in time with your heart during every waking moment and clinging to the wispy ends of your dreams. No, no - grief grows smart. It learns to hide in the gaps between breaths, learns to whisper in your ear as the wind blows. It does not linger long, just enough to make you stop and think.
For the unlucky, it may grab ahold of this moment of weakness and pull you under when you least expect it. For others, though, it fades once again, and you continue forth with only faint memories surfacing in the recesses of your mind.
The scars that grief leaves in your mind run deeper than any physical wound ever could. It tries to convince you that you, too, are lost.
Sometimes, you are.
Sometimes, years may pass without any more than a soft sigh or a flash of light to remind you. You may think it gone, that you have recovered. Healed.
An absence of grief is not healing; it is denial. Healing is letting go of the grief, letting it flow past you in your tumbling river of thoughts without fighting it. The sadness may not fade, but it doesn't have to. You learn to live with it.
But there are times when grief festers and grows. It takes over every thought, every breath, every second of your life. It pulls you under, drowns you in fear and pain. You cannot resurface alone, and without someone to pull you up or a rock to grab ahold of, you may be lost forever. It has happened before, and will surely happen again.
Grief is not always the end, but it can be. It never leaves, waiting for a moment of vulnerability to drag you down again. But the persistent can climb their way back to shore - and are the ones to answer the cries of those who couldn't.