The Hardest Years of Grief No One Talks About: Years 1, 2 & 3

When I lost both of my parents 9 months apart, everything I knew about the world shifted. One moment, I was living my life with them, and the next, I was standing in the wreckage, trying to figure out who I even was without them.

The first year? It was a mess. It felt like a constant wave, crashing over me again and again. Some days, I barely kept my head above water. Everything was raw. Everything hurt. But in a strange way, there was comfort in the visibility of it all. People knew I was grieving. I didn’t have to hide it. My pain was out in the open, and so many people stepped in — with food, text messages, hugs, and the kind of patience grief demands without asking.

But here’s the thing nobody tells you about grief: it doesn’t get better after the first year. It gets different. It gets lonelier. It gets heavier in ways you don’t expect.

At first, you’re caught up in the chaos. There’s a million things to do after someone dies — funeral planning, estate paperwork, making decisions about their house, their pets, their belongings. You stay busy because if you stop, you’ll drown. You don’t have the space to feel the full weight of it. You just do what needs to be done - check off that endless list.

Then, the milestones start. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. They come crashing in, and each one reminds you that they’re not here to celebrate with you. And then, somehow, you hit the one-year mark. 365 days without them. You'd think surviving a year would feel like some kind of victory. But the truth? It’s just the beginning. That first anniversary felt less like a victory and more like another loss.

"Grief is like living two lives. One is where you pretend that everything is alright, and the other is where your heart silently screams in pain."

Yeah. That.

In the U.S., the average bereavement leave is just three to five days.

Three. To. Five.

That’s it.

Three to five days to process the loss of someone who shaped your entire world. After that, you’re expected to “move on.” Work expects you back. Bills still need to be paid. Life marches forward. And for a while, people check in, but then those texts and calls start to slow down. They think you’re fine because you’re functioning. But deep down, you’re still drowning, just with a better mask on.

The second year is when the real weight sets in.

In the first year, there’s a built-in script. You’re allowed to be sad. You’re allowed to cancel plans. Everyone expects it. But in the second year? The world gets quieter. People stop checking in. The patience runs thin. The assumption is that by now, you should be "better." But what no one tells you is that the second year feels heavier than the first. You realize that the loss isn’t just about them — it’s about everything they represented in your life: your future with them, your identity as their child, the world you thought you were going to share together. The events and milestones you planned on celebrating with them. The loss you feel every time you want to call them or see them.

And research backs this up. Secondary losses — the loss of your sense of self, your daily routines, your support system — don’t fully sink in until the second year. The shock has worn off, and what’s left is the brutal reality that they’re not coming back. You’re not just grieving them; you’re grieving the life you lost with them. A 2018 study published in the Journal of Loss and Trauma found that grief symptoms often peak again around 18 to 24 months after a death — not within the first year as we traditionally think. Researchers observed that individuals often experience intensified loneliness, isolation, and emotional fatigue once the initial support from others dissipates.

"Grief is love with nowhere to go."

Every day, I find myself living with this love — this love for them that still exists — but no place to put it. I still want to call them. Still wish I could hear their voices again. Still wish they could see my life now. I try to think of how proud they would be of me for how I'm moving forward with life. I try to remember that they would want me to feel happiness and joy and live fully, even without them. All easier said than done, of course. None of that logic makes the sadness or the pain reside.

And the third year? That’s when grief doesn’t really “go away.” It just becomes part of who you are.

Three years.

1,095 days.

You’d think that by the third year, maybe the pain would subside. But life keeps moving forward, and you’re still carrying this deep, invisible ache. Marriages, babies, new jobs — the world keeps spinning, and you’re still standing in the same spot, wishing you could pause time and have them back for just a moment.

Grief by year three feels like this secret you carry around. You laugh, but there’s still this ache deep inside you. You show up, but part of you is still missing. You keep living, but you’re living alongside the absence. You’re building a life around the hole they left in it.

The exhaustion gets real. By year three, you’re tired. Tired of pretending to be okay because that’s what everyone expects. Tired of explaining why you’re not “over it” — like you ever could be. Tired of carrying something so big, so heavy, that no one else seems to see.

The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not 'get over' the loss... you will learn to live with it."— Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

And that’s exactly it, isn’t it? Grief isn’t something you get over. It’s something you learn to live with. It becomes part of who you are, woven into the fabric of your daily life.

If you're in your first, second, or third year of grief and you're feeling like you’re drowning while the world expects you to be thriving, hear me when I say this: You’re not broken. You’re not weak. You’re carrying something that can't be measured by time.

You’re not failing. You’re surviving something unimaginable. The truth is, every year you are without them is hard. The hardest years of grief might be different for you than it is for me. And that's ok. There isn't a playbook for this part of life. There's no handy guide to helping you feel "better" or getting "back to normal." You are learning how to live with a love that has nowhere to go. You’re rebuilding a life you never asked for, without the people who meant the most.

I see you. I’m proud of you. Your grief is valid. Your love is forever. And you’re doing better than you think.