How Grief Became an Unexpected Houseguest

By Lisa R. Conner

Lately, Casa Renae has been helping me grieve room by room.

That matters.

Because room by room feels safe.

Not easy.
Safe.

Manageable.
True.
Healthy.

I read the book every few days, and each time I cry in a different place.

A line.
A room.
A memory.
A truth that is ready now.

Not because I’m falling apart.

Because something in me is moving.

Because something that has been stored in my body for a very long time is finally trusting the moment enough to come up and be felt.

And then she comes.

Grief.

I can feel her.

She stands beside me.
One hand on my back.
One hand reaching for mine.
Steady.
Quiet.
Certain.

She does not push.
She does not demand.
She does not ask for more than I can bear.

She says,

This part now.
This much now.
Breathe.

That is what has changed.

I used to think grief would swallow me whole.
Open wide and take me under.

Now I know she comes for me.

The way I came for my eight-year-old self.
Tenderly.
Truthfully.
Willing to stay.
Willing to tell the truth.
Willing to walk me through one room at a time.

That changes everything.

The tears know.

They know what is ready now.
They know what my body can metabolize.
They know what can loosen without taking me under.

And I am not special in that.

Tears know their way through human rooms.

Not only mine.
Yours too.
The rooms of grief.
The rooms of love.
The rooms where something was lost, or silenced, or carried too long.

They know what others need too, and that humbles me.

Grief is with me in the rooms.
She guides.
She supports.

The tears are what help me see her work.

They wash away the chaos, the clutter, the chatter.

A little dirt gone.
A little grime lifted.
A little more road is visible.

Not forever.
Not perfectly.

Just enough.

Enough for the next breath.
Enough for the next room.
Enough for the next truth.

Breathing is the landing.

That’s what makes this feel so healthy to me.

Healing, for me, is not always dramatic.
It is deeply somatic.

A few tears.
A long exhale.
A hand on my chest.
A hand at my back.
Then breath again.

That is titration.
That is intention.
That is trust.

And somewhere in all of this, Grief gives me courage.

She offers it unconditionally.

Quiet courage.
Body courage.
Stay-here courage.

The courage to feel without fleeing.
The courage to tell the truth without collapsing.
The courage to remain in my body when I would rather disappear.

That is no small thing.

And something else is happening too.

As grief moves, so do relationships.

Old relationships soften.
New ones arrive.
Truth opens doors I did not know were still there.

The book is creating new relational truth while it heals old relational wounds.

That still amazes me.

Because the tears are not only washing me clean.

They are making room.

Room for honesty.
Room for tenderness.
Room for return.
Room for people who can meet me differently.
Room for me to meet them differently, too.

That feels sacred.

And this book?

It is more than a manuscript now.

It is a homescript.

Something written from the truest part of me that keeps meeting me in my body, room by room, breath by breath, tear by tear, and guiding me home.

Maybe that is what healing is.

Not becoming untouched.
Not becoming finished.
Not becoming someone who never cries.

Maybe it is this:

letting the tears come,
letting them wash the glass,
letting Grief stand beside you,
and trusting that she did not come to destroy you.

She came to guide you through the entire house.

The tears are how you see her work.

The tears know.

Living in curiosity,
Lisa

Lisa R. Conner is a writer, coach, REALTOR, and entrepreneur based in Alaska. She is the author of Casa Renae: Outgrowing Your Story & Coming Home to Yourself and writes Fireweed & Flannel as a place for honest reflections on reinvention, courage, identity, grief, real estate, and the wild beauty of becoming.

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