Sometimes We Grieve Our Sense of Safety Too

When violence happens to someone we love, or keeps happening to people who look like us, live near us, run the same streets, or simply move through the same world, something else can quietly be lost: the assumption that we are safe.

You may find yourself becoming more watchful. Changing where you walk. Checking that someone arrived home. Feeling uneasy in places that once felt ordinary.

Sometimes grief changes not only how we understand loss, but how we move through the world afterwards. And when violence keeps appearing in our communities, in our conversations and in the news, that sense of safety can be shaken again and again.

That fear deserves attention and care too. You do not have to convince yourself that the world is completely safe before your body can begin to feel safer.

For now, safety might be something very small. Someone beside you. A locked door. A familiar voice. Your feet grounded on the floor.

A reminder that, in this moment, you are here.