That one day it would become easier.

That I would learn to live again.

They were right, in a way, though not in the way they meant.

The grief did change.

It changed from a thing that physically crushed me every single morning — that sat on my chest the instant I woke and had to be heaved off before I could so much as sit up — into something quieter and more portable, something I learned to carry around with me through my days rather than something that pinned me to the bed.

That is what people mean, I think, when they promise it gets easier.