A journal from the counselling room: grief has no schedule
Naomi Achieng · 19 August 2026 · 3 min read
Reflections from a counsellor on the second year of grief, anniversary waves, and what families get wrong about "moving on".
People expect grief to be loudest at the funeral. In my room, the harder sessions often come in the second year, when everyone else has moved on and the person grieving is expected to be finished.
Grief is not linear and it does not keep a calendar, though it does have rhythms. Anniversaries, birthdays, a song in a shop, the smell of a particular soap — waves arrive without permission. Clients often apologise for crying about something that happened three years ago, as if there were a deadline.
What helps is rarely advice. It is space to say the person's name out loud, permission to keep some rituals and drop others, and gentle attention to sleep and food while the body carries the weight.
If you are supporting someone, ask about them rather than steering them toward closure. And if grief has flattened your ability to work, eat or connect for months, that is not weakness — it is a reason to sit with a counsellor.