When Grief Doesn’t Want to Be Carried Alone

I visit the place where Skye is buried when my heart feels heavy at the edge of the forest beneath the birch trees. I clear the fallen branches and debris from her resting place, tending the ground the way one tends a sacred space.

Before the snow fell, I could already see how the land had begun to take her back- vines weaving in, wild grass rising. I know this is what she wanted: to become part of the land she loved so much. The wildflower seeds I scattered will bloom in the spring-with her.

There is something deeply right about the way the land receives her.

Skye didn’t disappear.
She changed form.
And I am witnessing that change with each passing season.

I’ve learned that grief doesn’t move in straight lines.

There are days when being with my new mare Grace is hard, not because Grace has done anything wrong, but because grief has edges, and those edges get touched unexpectedly. On those days, I walk the paddock looking for Skye- not literally, but somatically.

My body remembers where safety once lived.
My feet remember her paths.
I lean against the trees that kept her dry.
I touch the ground that once held her weight.

My mind sometimes tells me I should be “over” this loss by now.  
But my body knows better. It says: I remember where safety lived and I am allowed to grieve that loss.

I’m sure people wonder what I’m doing as I circle the paddock or touch the land and breathe in deep with my eyes closed. But this way of looking for connection is something very ancient and very human. I am staying in relationship with a loved one whose form has changed.

I worry sometimes about forgetting her. And then I remember that Skye does not require my constant remembering to remain real.

She is in:
how I walk more slowly now amongst the herd
how I notice the land and listen to the ravens
how I allow horses to choose
how I refuse to force connection.

Skye is woven into the horsewoman I have become.

Some days she feels everywhere.
Some days she feels quiet.
Some days I reach for her without knowing why.

All of that belongs on this grief journey.

Today, I gathered fallen cedar branches and pinecones from her paddock. Tomorrow I will walk to the river that runs alongside it. I’ll stand at the water’s edge and let the river, the eagles, and the salmon hold what I can’t, and don’t need to carry alone. Grief doesn’t have to be carried inward. It can be held in a wider field if we let it.

I’ll breathe deep.
I’ll listen.
I’ll offer the cedar in gratitude.
And that will be enough.

Letting grief move through relationship, rather than collapsing inward, is deeply regulating. Deeply respectful. Deeply alive.

Skye knew this language.
The land knows it too.

——–

If you are grieving, you are not doing it wrong.

Grief doesn’t move in a straight line, and it doesn’t follow the timelines we’re often given. Some days you may feel steady, even peaceful. Other days, something small- a place, a sound, a presence- may open an edge you didn’t know was still tender.

That doesn’t mean you’re going backward. It means your love is still alive.

Grief often lives in the body before it finds words. You might feel drawn to walk familiar paths, to touch the land, to return to places where safety once lived. You may find yourself reaching for connection-not always consciously, not always logically. This, too, is part of grieving.

You don’t have to carry it all alone or hold it tightly inside. Grief was never meant to be contained only within us. It can be shared- with the earth, with water, with trees, with animals, with the quiet witnesses who know how to hold weight without needing answers.

If it feels right, you might pause and place a hand on your heart. Or on the ground beneath you. You might breathe and remember: I am allowed to feel this. I am allowed to take my time.

Grief is not something to get over.

It is something that learns how to live with us- changing shape, softening, settling into who we are becoming.

And if you are in a season where grief feels close, know this:
You are not alone in it.
The horses are here for you too.