Grief isn’t one thing. It isn’t a single feeling, a single chapter or a single experience you “go through”. It’s a landscape, and everyone walks it differently. Some people move slowly. Some sprint and crash. Some feel nothing at all at first. Some break open immediately. All of these responses are human.

When someone you love dies, life doesn’t go back to normal. It reshapes itself around the loss. And as you start moving through the world again, you come face-to-face with a series of moments known simply as the firsts.