A Note on Grief — Turning 36 and the Phone Call That Will Never Come

I have been sitting with these words since my 36th birthday. It has taken me a while to share them, but something kept nudging me, and I've learned to listen to that.

I woke up that morning happy. Genuinely, quietly happy. And then I got in the car to drive to work, and somewhere between the driveway and the road, it hit me.

I am waiting for a phone call that is never going to come.

This is the first birthday I didn't get a phone call I have always gotten. And the silence where that call should have been, was louder than anything else that day. My partner was already at work, I was heading there myself, alone in the car, birthday and all, sitting with something I couldn't quite name at first.

Grief, it turns out, doesn't wait for a convenient moment.

I got beautiful messages that day. Calls that made me smile, words that genuinely touched me. And still — something was missing. It took me a while to understand what. Because grief isn't just about missing a person. It's about missing who you were with them. The inside jokes no one else will ever fully get. The version of you that only existed in their presence, the one that laughed a certain way, spoke a certain shorthand, felt fully seen without having to explain yourself. When someone is gone, that version of you loses its home too.

This birthday has been one of the most reflective of my life.

In the last few months, I have had so many people close to me experience loss, family members, beloved pets, relationships and I have watched grief move through the people I love in all its many forms. It is never neat. It is never linear. And it is so rarely just about one thing.

Because we grieve more than people. We grieve pets who loved us without condition. We grieve friendships that quietly dissolved. We grieve siblings we are no longer close to, relationships that ended, versions of our lives we can't go back to. Some of that grief has no grave to visit, no flowers, no occasion. Just a name you still almost call, a habit your heart hasn't broken yet.

And you are allowed to feel all of it.

You are allowed to feel happy and sad on the same day, in the same hour, sometimes in the same breath. You don't have to choose. You don't have to be one thing.

I also want to say something about a phrase I hear a lot — "you’re so strong." I know it is always meant with love and admiration, and I have said it myself. But I have been thinking about it lately. Does it, even gently, even unintentionally suggest that someone who shows more emotion is somehow less strong? Does it quietly ask people to hold it together, to carry it privately, to live up to a version of themselves that doesn't have bad days in the car on their birthday?

Strength isn't silence. Strength isn't holding it in. Sometimes strength is saying, I am not okay today, and that is okay.

I am not writing this for sympathy. I am writing this because I know I am not the only one who has sat in a car and cried on a day that was supposed to be happy. I am writing this because life is not an Instagram highlight reel, and I have never wanted to pretend that mine is. I am writing this because real is more important to me than polished, and feelings, all of them, deserve to be seen.

So love louder while you can. Say the thing. Make the call. Don't save it for later.

And if you're sitting with something heavy today, even something you can't quite explain — I hope this reminds you that you are not alone, that your grief is valid, and that you are allowed to feel it all.

I wrote a poem that holds a lot of what I've been carrying. I hope it holds something for you too.

One More Day

Grief is not just missing you; it's missing who I'd be,
the version of myself that only ever lived through we.
The inside jokes now spoken soft to nobody but air,
the shorthand and the laughter and the love beyond compare.

I see you in the morning light, I hear you in a song,
a stranger laughs across the room; I’m pulled back close to you,
just one breathless, aching second where you're close enough to touch,
and then I have to lose you once again, and it's too much.

We grieve in ways that no one thinks to put a name upon,
a pet who loved you freely, faithful, here and then just gone,
a friendship lost without a funeral, a sibling drifted far,
some grief has got no grave to visit, no goodbye, no scar.

But you; you took a piece of me I'll never get back whole,
a language only we both spoke, a home inside my soul.
If I could have one more day with you, just one, I swear I'd stay,
I would not waste a single breath or let a moment fray.

I'd tell you how completely, how enormously you mattered,
I’d love you like the clock was loud, leave nothing left unsaid.
I'd make sure you left knowing — every word spoken aloud,
not hinted at or half confessed or hidden in the crowd.

So maybe that's your parting gift, still reaching from beyond.
To say it loud and plainly to the ones of whom we're fond,
to stay a little longer, and to let them know before the sorrow.

I carry you in quiet things, in rainfall and in light,
in every tender ordinary moment, morning, noon and night.
Not lost, just walking close to me, in all that's good and true,
there was never enough time —
there was never enough time with you.

By Phoebe Evers

I’d also love to share one of my favourite songs for when you are missing some one and need a good cry.

“If heaven had a front porch by Nic D”