by Kate's Club LoKate member Kristina
Grief changes you. That’s one of the few universal truths I’ve come to accept in young adulthood. It sneaks in—quiet and shapeless—until suddenly, you’re living in it, like fog you can’t find your way out of.
When I lost my dad to cancer in February 2021, I didn’t just grieve his absence—I grieved parts of myself I hadn’t even realized I’d abandoned. I mourned the child in me who loved her father deeply, the self that had once felt whole. In the complicated process of mourning—of trying to find rhythm in a life that no longer felt familiar—I stumbled back into something almost forgotten: horseback riding.
A year before my dad passed, I had signed up for adult riding lessons and started part-boarding a beautiful Thoroughbred. I didn’t know it then, but that decision would become a lifeline.
Growing up, horses were everything. I was that kid—the one who could name every breed, who spent weekends at the barn, who memorized riding techniques from dog-eared books and believed that horses understood feelings better than most people. But as I got older, life got louder. School, responsibilities, relationships, and the rush to “become someone” pulled me away from the barn. Slowly, riding faded into something I used to do—a chapter that closed without me even noticing.
Then came the loss.
Grief has a strange way of fracturing everything. You expect sadness, but not the disorientation. You expect to miss the person, but not how their absence will magnify everything else that feels unstable or unresolved. What I didn’t expect was how alone I’d feel—not just in losing my dad, but in how I grieved him.
Is there a “wrong” way to grieve?
My family clung to rituals, to busyness, to tight-lipped strength. I needed space to unravel. I cried while they stayed stoic. I wanted to talk about the memories, the regrets, the “what-ifs.” They seemed focused on “what’s next.” I started to wonder if I was doing it wrong—if there was such a thing as failing at grief.
That disconnect in how we processed the loss became another layer of pain. I loved my family, but I couldn’t seem to reach them in our shared mourning. Every dinner felt like we were tiptoeing around a ghost. I needed something that didn’t require words—a space where my emotions could simply exist, unjudged and unfiltered.
That’s when I found myself back at the barn.
A unique way to cope with grief
It started on a whim. I was driving past the edge of town, where the pastures roll wide and open, and I saw horses grazing against the backdrop of a sunset. Something in me softened. It felt like a memory knocking on a door I didn’t realize I’d locked. A few days later, I booked a lesson.
Walking into the barn again after all those years felt like stepping into a parallel version of my life—the one where I never stopped riding, never drifted so far from what I loved. The smell of hay and leather, the rhythm of brushing down a horse, the quiet of early morning rides—it all came back like muscle memory. But more than that, it awakened something I hadn’t felt in a long time: presence, peace, and a selfhood not defined by achievement.
Riding wasn’t an escape from grief. It was a space to hold it. On a horse, I had to be fully there—in my body, in the moment, in sync with another living being. There was no room for spiraling thoughts or guilt over not grieving “correctly.” Horses don’t need explanations. They just meet you where you are.
Through riding, I began reconnecting with parts of myself I’d neglected—my intuition, my joy, my need for freedom. I realized that I didn’t have to grieve the same way my family did in order to honor the person we lost. Grief isn’t one path—it’s many. And as I spent more time at the barn, I began approaching my family not with frustration, but with compassion. We were all just trying to find our way through the same fog.
Grieving as a young adult
Grief didn’t leave me, but it shifted—from a wall into a shadow. Still present, but no longer blocking out the sun. And riding didn’t “fix” me, but it reminded me that healing isn’t about becoming who you were before. It’s about building something new with the pieces that remain.
Being a young adult is already a season of transition—figuring out who you are when childhood ends, who you want to be outside of other people’s expectations. Grief in your 20s adds another layer to that journey. It asks you to sit with discomfort and uncertainty while still trying to move forward. But sometimes, rediscovering an old love—something as simple and profound as riding a horse—can be the thing that anchors you in yourself again.
I don’t know where this path will lead. But I do know I’m not the same person I was before the loss—or before I found my way back to the barn. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe this version of me—grieving, growing, riding—is exactly who I’m meant to be right now.
Contact Kate's Club for grief support in Georgia
Kate’s Club empowers children and teens, their families, and young adults facing life after the death of a parent, sibling, caregiver or someone important to them. The organization builds healing communities through recreational and therapeutic group grief programs, education and advocacy. Since its founding in metro Atlanta in 2003, Kate’s Club has served thousands of individuals who are grieving, through both in-house and outreach services. Kate's Club offers free grief support services in Atlanta, Albany, Athens, Brunswick, Cobb County, and Newnan, GA. For more information, visit katesclub.org.