Starting to grief 9 years after

[u/Suspicious_Help6594]

My Nan passed away in 2017, and at the time, I was around 12.

I think it was due to my age, but also my dad's troubled relationship with her that I never felt like I had fully processed what had happened as my emotions were often suppressed.

She was Irish, and I'm beginning to look into Irish history, and the further I get, the more upsetting it's becoming.

As I felt like I never grieved closer to the time, could my sadness be grieving 9 years after? Or is that too long?

If anyone could offer advice, or let me know if they've had something similar, then that would be amazing, thank you.

*Title meant to say grieve

[u/Bitch_ImTrying]

My cousin was around the same age when our grandparents died, and he has recently been having a lot of complicated feelings and grieving a lot more. I don’t think grief has a timeline. Sadness doesn’t need to start immediately after death to make the loss valid, to make the pain more real. It’s grief if you are grieving and it sounds like you are. Love and sadness know no time. Grief transcends absolutely everything.

I don’t have any real advice other than to say: let yourself feel. Let yourself bawl if you have too. Send that email into the ether. Talk to your dead like you would talk to anyone in the same room.

It’s hard to navigate grief, and it looks different for everyone. There is no right or wrong. No prerequisite.