Grief is finicky. It’s fickle. It’ unpredictable. It’s unreliable. Just when you think you are okay. Something happens. You see a little girl with her dad that reminds you of your dad. You hear a song he loved. You see a picture, and here comes the waterworks.

Last year, I was okay the beginning part of the morning on 10-11-21. I went to work and prepared to post my customary Facebook post. While looking for a picture of my dad, something in me broke. And I started crying at my desk in my classroom.

I moved to a place in my room where nobody can see me and cried. Talked to my dad. “I miss you so much. I’m not going to have a pity party today because I know that’s not what you would want me to do. But I need to get this cry out right now.” And cry I did.

I went back to my desk, where I began crying again five minutes later. This time I called my husband, who was very supportive. “Let’s do something to honor your dad after work today.”

So what was different about that day? In the past was I better able to compartmentalize my feelings and just set them aside from whatever I had to do that day? What was so different about this year that the emotions just flooded in on me and I couldn’t ignore it?

Sometimes I just need a good cry. To get it out. I may have had a few years of crying cooped up inside of me, and that day was when the dam broke.

Now here we are at 10-11-22. Another year has passed, and I don’t know what the day will bring, or how grief will sneak up on me. I do know I’m going to work to get on with the business of living because that is what he would want me to do.