I wrote a blog back in 2019 about grief. You can read it if you want Grieving; unpack your bags, we’ll be here for a while., your choice, no pressure. I hadn’t reread it until today. And oh my God… it just hit me — today is Norm’s birthday August 4th, 1969.

Now it all makes sense. This strange heaviness I’ve been carrying since morning. Norm’s death wasn’t my first experience with loss, but it was the one that transformed me. It introduced me to the deep, dark, unrelenting reality of grief.

Grief is rude. It shows up uninvited, pulls up a comfy chair, and parks itself in your home like it pays rent. It doesn’t. And it definitely doesn’t care about timing. It barges in during holidays, during board meetings, in grocery aisles, in Carnival bands. I’ll get to that embarrassment later.

I didn’t plan to write anything today. But once I remembered what today was, I realized this post was already writing itself. And for the first time, I didn’t feel like posting a “Happy Heavenly Birthday” post. I don’t want the standard likes, the polite condolences, or the emotionally vacant “sorries.” Not because I’m judging anyone who does it — we’re in a digital world now and everyone has their own way. I’ve just learned that my grief prefers privacy. Always has.

I think we’re conditioned that way. To avoid being the person with emotions that make people uncomfortable.

So how am I feeling?

It’s been almost 27 years since Norm passed. Five years since my mom. Twenty-four years since my dad. As I wrote in that first blog, Norm’s grief was the hardest. I didn’t even get to grieve my dad properly. But my mom? That grief belongs in its own category.

My grief for her started immediately. Two weeks after my son was born, we found out she had Alzheimer’s. I was 30. She was 57. No cure. Just a clock ticking in reverse.

She looked fine on the outside, but her brain was slowly shutting down. Unless you’ve seen that process up close, you can’t truly understand it. One day she forgot my birthday. I told her, “It’s okay, Mom. You don’t need to remember.” Meanwhile, I was dying inside. I could see her trying so hard. I smiled through it, pretending like it didn’t hurt. She didn’t want to admit what was happening. Too proud. That quiet kind of pride that hides behind lipstick and politeness. I think I inherited that from her.

That kind of grief doesn’t get talked about. But looking back, those were the easier days. Because at least there was still a voice. Still a response. Still a “Hi, Car.”

Then came my dad. Fourteen months later. No diagnosis. No warning. No prep. Just a phone call telling me he was gone. Two months after his 59th birthday. That one broke me. Not because I loved him more than my mom, but because he was the person I called when life didn’t make sense. He was pragmatic. Opinionated. Usually right. He gave advice I didn’t always take, but always considered.

Losing him was brutal. But I couldn’t even fall apart, because I had to manage the fallout for my mom. The goal was to prevent her from spiraling deeper into confusion or depression. How do you tell someone who’s losing their grip on reality that their partner of 36 years has died?

So I couldn’t be fully present at his funeral. There were over 500 people there. I remember nothing. I spoke, but I couldn’t tell you what I said. All I remember is trying not to cry while meeting dignitaries from the Grenada Airports Authority. I got to the fifth person in the line, and the tears started. Because I knew these were the people my dad had worked with. These were the people he would have introduced me to. And now I was meeting them like this. Not as his daughter, but as his legacy.

And still, all I could think was, “I hope my mom is okay.”

That’s what living grief looks like. You don’t get time to fall apart. You’re always managing something.

Eventually, my mom lost her voice. Yes, Alzheimer’s takes that too. At first, it was repetitive questions. Then, silence. The kind of silence that echoes.

I kept going. I did my HR certificate. Then Adult Education. Then my MBA. Then my doctorate. I taught on weekends. I parented. I became a single parent. I just kept moving. Kept collecting accomplishments like armor. Turns out I was trying to outrun grief.

Spoiler alert: you can’t. It follows you. Waits for you. Sits in your shower. Sneaks up behind you on long drives. Pulls up in traffic jams and holds your chest hostage.

Then came the hospital call. My PSW said Mom was unresponsive. When I got to the ER, she looked gone. The monitor beeped, but her body looked like it had already given up. The doctor told me her organs were strong, but her brain was severely shrunken. She’d entered palliative care.

I don’t know what stage of grief that was, but I’m pretty sure Kubler-Ross never wrote about this part. Where you’re literally watching a countdown. Where you do your mom’s funeral planning years in advance, just in case. Where you stop going out because you’re afraid you’ll miss “the call.”

I even did grief counselling as a pre-emptive measure. Who does that? Me, apparently.

Except the countdown never came. Not for five years. Because, of course, my mother would be the one to say, “You want a timeline? Cute.” I joked with my brother that I wanted to get her a shirt that said “Oh yeah?” which was her classic line growing up.

Eventually, though, she did go. January 2020. She weighed maybe 70 pounds. She didn’t look like herself, but she waited. I think she waited until I turned 50. Maybe even waited past my brother’s birthday so he wouldn’t associate the two. That’s the kind of love no one teaches you how to grieve.

When people say, “At least she’s out of pain,” I nod politely. But the pain didn’t go away. It just moved into me. I carry it now.

And about that Carnival story I mentioned earlier?

It was Carnival Tuesday, 2020. Harts Band. Someone offered me a sweet condolence about my mom. That was it. A kind word. And suddenly, I was crying in the middle of the road, surrounded by soca and feathers and glitter. The grief hit like a rogue wave. It brought Norm, my dad, and my mom with it. All at once. All on the same day. No warning.

That’s what grief is. A gangster with no chill. And I’ve stopped apologizing for it.

So now, when it shows up, I just say, “Give me a second. It’s just my grief. It’s passing.”

Because it will. It always does. What remains is the reminder. That I was deeply loved. And I still carry that love inside of me.

So whether grief visits me in the shower, on a long drive, or in the middle of Carnival on a cart, I won’t be embarrassed by it. It’s just love, finding a way to say, “I’m still here.”