Grief, they say, moves like the ebb and flow of the ocean’s waves—relentless and unpredictable. It’s a reality I’ve intimately experienced.

These emotions undulate, catching you off guard with varying intensities. Like the advice to never turn your back on the ocean, grief’s waves can be powerful, hitting harder than expected. Occasionally, a rogue wave emerges, challenging your stability.

On Reddit, a heartfelt tale emerged. A woman grieving her best friend found solace in connecting with strangers. In response, a compassionate commenter, “old man,” described grief as waves. His simple, authentic words resonated so deeply that they went viral.

Much like the ocean’s waves, grief is an undeniable force. “Old man’s” reflection captures its essence, illustrating how it fluctuates through our lives. This analogy connects us all through the shared human experience of navigating the unpredictable journey of grief.

Take it From an Old Man – Anonymous.

As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage, and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, or the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.

Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O’Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out.

Take it from an old guy.

The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to.

But you learn that you’ll survive them.

And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them, too.

If you’re lucky, you’ll have many scars from many loves. And lots of shipwrecks.”