The Empty Chair

Welcome.

There’s someone you’re missing right now. Maybe you’ve been missing them for a long time, or maybe the missing showed up suddenly this morning with no warning at all. A sound. A smell. A time of day that used to belong to both of you and now belongs to just you.

I’m not going to tell you how to move through this feeling, because grief doesn’t move in directions. It sits with you. Sometimes in the center of the room, sometimes in a corner where you almost forget it’s there, and sometimes right in your chest where it’s hard to take a full breath.

So let’s just be here with it for a moment.

I want you to think of one completely unremarkable thing about the person you’re missing. Not a big moment, or a holiday or a milestone or the last time you spoke. Something smaller than that. Something no one else would remember.

The way they held their fork. A phrase they said too often. How they cleared their throat before speaking. The sound of their shoes on the floor. What they ordered when they couldn’t decide.

Sit with that one detail. You might notice something surprising. The small memories carry less pain than the big ones. They’re not loaded with significance or loss. They’re just true. They’re just a piece of a person you loved, preserved in the most ordinary packaging.

The big memories belong to grief. But the small ones belong to you. No one can take them because no one else was paying attention to the way they stirred their coffee or the noise they made when something was funny.

Your Tiny Healing Habit today is called The Ordinary Detail. At some point today, let yourself remember one completely unremarkable thing about the person you miss. Not a meaningful moment. A meaningless one. The kind of thing you’d never put in a eulogy. Hold it for a few seconds and then let it go. You can pick it back up tomorrow. It’ll still be there.