no one ever told me that grief felt so like fear...

“For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?

But if a spiral, am I going up or down it?

How often -- will it be for always? -- how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, "I never realized my loss till this moment"? The same leg is cut off time after time.”

― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

To the mourners: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." -Matthew 5:4