01/28/2026
One helpful way to understand grief comes from Lois Tonkin.
Tonkin’s theory challenges the idea that grief fades, resolves, or disappears with time. Instead, it suggests this: grief stays the same size, but life grows around it.
In the beginning, grief can feel all-consuming. It takes up everything. Over time, new experiences, relationships, routines, and moments of meaning slowly expand the space around the grief. The pain doesn’t vanish. It’s just no longer the only thing present.
This matters because it removes the pressure to “get over it.”
If your grief still feels heavy years later, that doesn’t mean you’re stuck.
If moments of joy coexist with deep sorrow, that doesn’t mean you’re betraying your loss.
Grief doesn’t ask to be erased.
It asks to be carried, alongside a life that continues to grow.
Both can be true at the same time.
