Not Now.

I came across a poem by Ullie-Kaye titled “Not Now”. It reads:

I woke up this morning and rubbed my eyes, still feeling tired and fumbling around the house. Grief stumbled beside me.

“Not now” I said, “I am barely even awake. This is not the time.”

I made a quick breakfast and hurried out the door. Grief followed along.

I turned around and said, “Not now, they cannot see me crying.”

I busied myself all day until I finally had some time to rest.

I fell onto the chesterfield, glad to have a minute to myself.

Grief whispered in my ear again.

“Not now” I said, “can’t you see how much I need this?”

So, grief sat right down beside me instead. Not a single word.

No quiet breath. She just sat there on the next cushion.

I felt her but I did not want to look.

In a moment of curiosity, I glanced over at her presence.

Hands folded politely. Flowers in her hair. Her skin soft and delicate.

She must have noticed my confusion.

“I know” she said, “not now.”

“No – it’s okay” I said, “it’s just – I didn’t expect you to look like that.”

“Like what?”

“Beautiful, gentle, full of grace. And to think, I pushed you away all day.”

Grief looked at me with tender eyes and said, “You just hadn’t seen me dressed as love yet.”

It’s such an honest picture of what avoiding grief looks like. Not that we need to enjoy it, of course, but grief doesn’t take a hint. It lingers. It waits until you stop long enough to notice it sitting there, quiet and polite, refusing to leave until it’s been seen.

I didn’t recognize grief for what it was. I treated it like an intruder instead of a companion. I told it “not now” while trying to hold my life together with duct tape and caffeine. I thought grief was supposed to look tragic, not tender. I didn’t want to be “tragic”.

But it turns out she was there all along, patient and unassuming, waiting for me to quit dodging her.

For years, I thought grief and love lived on opposite sides of the room. One hurt, one healed. One took, one gave. But now I see they were never on separate sides at all. They’ve been sitting together the whole time, quietly holding hands. Grief isn’t love’s opposite, it’s the proof that love existed so deeply it left an imprint when it had to leave the room.

Eventually, grief stopped trying to get my attention through tears and started showing up in smaller, quieter ways. A memory that caught me off guard. A song I couldn’t skip. A moment of peace that felt undeserved. For a while, I thought she was just trying to ruin my day, showing up uninvited like a neighbor who doesn’t knock. It took me a long time to realize she wasn’t trying to wreck me, she was trying to soften me.

That’s what Ullie-Kaye captured so beautifully in “Not Now.” Grief doesn’t arrive to punish you. She sits beside you, hands folded, patient and kind, reminding you that love didn’t die. It just changed form.

If you’re in that place where you keep telling grief “not now,” I understand. Avoiding it is just trying to survive, but grief won’t hold that against you. She will wait until you’re ready, and when you finally stop running, she’ll meet you where you are. Not to pull you under; to remind you that what you lost was real, and that love is still there, quietly waiting too.

With grace for the mess,

~Stef