What Time Couldn't Heal
I understand why people say it, but the older I get, the less convinced I am.
One of the things grief has taught me is that it doesn't follow a manual. It doesn't move neatly from one stage to the next. It doesn't keep a schedule or ask permission before showing up.
Maybe that's okay.
I've had enough scars—both visible and invisible—to know that healing isn't the same as erasing. Some scars fade until you barely notice them. Others remind you they're still there when you move a certain way.
Grief has felt a lot like that for me.
I have had four c-sections. I've always formed keloid scars, both internally and externally, from those surgeries. Even now, I can have sharp ripping pain if I turn a certain way or get up too quickly from lying or sitting down. That's what grief has often felt like for me. Most days I don't notice it. Then something shifts—a memory, a song, a photograph—and suddenly I'm right back there again.
I've thought about that a lot over the years, especially after losing both of my parents.
What I've come to realize is that grief doesn't have just one face.
Sometimes grief comes after death. Sometimes it begins long before someone is gone. Sometimes it follows a goodbye you never expected to say. Sometimes it comes when life takes a turn you never saw coming, and you realize the future you imagined will never be. Sometimes it even appears after years of hardship, when you finally have the space to feel what you've been carrying all along.
One of the things that has surprised me most is that grief doesn't always make sense. It doesn't ask whether a relationship was easy or hard. It doesn't separate the beautiful memories from the painful ones. Somehow, it finds room for both.
I've watched that happen in my own heart, and I don't think it's happened by accident.
For a long time after my mom died, Alzheimer's was the first thing that came to mind whenever I thought about her. Lately, though, something has been changing. The memories of who she was before the disease have been finding their way back, and I'm so grateful for that.
Maybe that's what emotional scars do.
They don't disappear.
Sometimes they ache when we least expect it.
But eventually, they stop being defined by the wound and begin reminding us of the love that came before it.
Maybe what has been healing me wasn't time at all.
Maybe it was God.
Not by erasing every scar or taking away every painful memory, but by changing what those scars remind us of. Little by little, He helps us remember not just what we lost, but what we were blessed to have.
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