Grief, the silent teacher

I met grief long before I knew its name.

As a child, I didn't lose people, I lost possibilities. I watched other families laugh, move, belong, and grieved the life I never had. I learned early that grief wasn't only about death; sometimes, it was about absence. About standing outside of something you wished you could touch.

When my father passed, grief came differently.

It didn't break me open, it hollowed me gently, almost like relief. I remember feeling guilty for not collapsing. Because I thought grief was supposed to feel heavy, loud, unbearable. Instead, it arrived quietly. Like someone closing a door in another room. I didn't understand it then, but that was the first time I learned that grief could hold both pain and peace in the same breath. Also, no one tells you how confusing it is when you’re sad and relieved, it’s like crying while doing your taxes. Messy and oddly administrative.

The view that still feels like goodbye and home at the same time.

Later, when I left my home country, I grieved again, not someone but everything. The humid air, the sing-song language, the laksa and chicken rice, the sound of "uwu" bird in the mornings. It was a kind of preemptive grief, knowing I would never belong to that place in the same way again. I carried that ache in silence; I didn't know how to externalise it. So it lived in my body instead. Though, to be fair, some of it probably lived in my stomach too, have you tasted laksa?

Then came the loss that changes everything, my mother.

That grief hit differently. It softened me. There was no resistance left in me, no fight. Just waves. Gentle, unrelenting. I didn't try to control it this time. I let it wash through. Grief became a teacher in stillness, showing me that love doesn't end when life does, it just finds a quieter way to stay. It also teaches you how to cry in public without scaring strangers, black eyeliners and smoky eyes, 10/10 survival skill.

When illness entered my life, grief became physical.

I grieved the body I used to know, the one that didn’t ache, that didn’t tire so easily. The one that once felt limitless. These days, my body writes its own schedule. She doesn’t consult me.

Around that time, I came across the book The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk and something inside me clicked. It put words to what I had already begun to sense: that the body doesn’t just carry us; it carries our stories. Every loss, every silence, every unspoken ache lives somewhere within us. Healing, then, isn’t only emotional, it’s physical.

First barbell squat with my first personal trainer. 60% nerves, 40% quad engagement. 100% determination.

Movement became my language of grief. Through rebuilding, I was teaching my body safety again. Through motion, I was giving grief a way out. Because somewhere along the way, grief stopped being something that broke me, it became something that built me.

I started learning about my body. I channelled the grief into small walks, then into daily yoga, and eventually into mobility flows. Bit by bit, I found my way into the gym. From falling off the treadmill (I really did, oh the horror!) to endless reps on the hip abduction machine, I started to fall in love with movement again. And somewhere between shaky squats and sore muscles, thanks to Fab, my personal trainer, I fell in love with the barbell too.

Rebound was born from that space. The understanding that we can rebuild ourselves not despite the losses, but through them. That movement: gentle, conscious, intentional, can become a language of healing.

And now, I find myself learning a new kind of grief, the professional kind.

The grief of outgrowing things, of letting go of people or projects that once felt like home. The grief of having to release what no longer aligns, even when your heart still holds on. It’s quieter, this one. Less dramatic, more humbling. It teaches patience, discernment, and trust in time. It’s the kind of grief that makes you stare at your emails like they personally betrayed you.

Grief has shaped every part of who I am.

It has lived in my mind, my muscles, my bones. It has stripped me down, softened my edges, and reminded me of what truly matters. I don’t try to overcome it anymore. I move with it.

Because grief isn’t the end of something.

It’s a transition, a movement.

And through it, we rebuild.

We relearn.

We Rebound.

Preferably with good shoes, good food, and a sense of humour, essentials for any kind of healing.