Slow Goodbyes: Grief in the Ordinary and Every Day

As a somatic grief counsellor, I know in my body and mind that grief is unpredictable and shows up for us in the classic moments of a special holiday or date and also in the normal moments of daily life. It could be the smell of a blanket, someone’s voice, the quiet of sitting together, the taste of a soup or a feeling you have that awakens the memories. The rhythm of ordinary days continues even when remembering or experiencing a goodbye.

In my own life, loss ebbed and flowed. I carry the grief of losing a sibling, my father, my cousin, grandparents, friends, and people I’ve walked alongside as clients and students. Each of them holding a space in my heart. Each death has been so unique in how I have grieved teaching me how there is no pattern or process that is normal. The steps that I learned about in grad school are more like a mess of emotions unique to my relationship and process. How they died and what my goodbye was with them is a giant piece of my grief stories. 

Grief, when tended and honoured can be a way of staying connected rather than getting over or going through steps to move on. I still haven’t moved on from my first loss at 3 years old and I know I never will. My grandfather lives on with me in his quiet laughter, love of watching trains and the feeling of his brave acceptance of cancer. Those that I lost live in me not as pain, but as memories of the relationship both simple and complex. 

When someone is ill and dying, we can tend to focus on the goodbye, as if it’s a single moment we must get “right.” But in the body, goodbye happens again and again through shared meals, jokes, silence, routine, caring for the person and the visits of others.  Noticing these little goodbyes by naming and feeling and allowing it support our nervous systems process and integrate into what is actually happening, rather than bracing against it.

The film Goodbye June moved me so deeply because it showed this experience without glossing it over. It slowed down the family experience. The normal and mundane moments of a family gathering around a mother and grandmother were honoured. Life and grief coexisted in this movie. This movie was about presence and meaning and each family member feeling their own sadness, grief and love. 

Goodbye June is an intimate family drama about siblings who reunite at their childhood home as their mother’s health declines, forcing them to confront old dynamics, unresolved tensions, and shared love. Set in the quiet spaces between conversations, the film explores how ordinary moments become the way a family slowly says goodbye. I cried the whole way through at the open heartness of this movie.

The grief work I do is an invitation to notice what we hold in our body and mind. Our tears, numbness, anger, rage, sadness and confusion that come in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday, a counselling session or a special holiday are not interruptions, they are the process. 

You don’t have to carry grief alone. A counsellor can offer a steady, compassionate space to share the weight of loving someone who is dying or who has died. Grief needs witnesses.When it’s shared, it can shift into something maybe a little bit easier to hold.