The Labyrinth of Grief

The Labyrinth of Grief

After a loved one vanishes, a teenager navigates a shifting maze in their dreams — a story where memory and loss twist into each other.

The first time it happened, I thought I was simply dreaming. A normal dream—if you could call an endless stone corridor, cold as regret and dimly lit by flickering lanterns, “normal.” I stood barefoot on damp stone, the air thick like unspoken words. The silence hummed with something just out of reach, like a name caught in the throat.

I called out, “Mom?”

The maze didn’t answer.

My mother had been missing for 36 days.

They said the trail went cold. That she must’ve wanted to leave. That maybe she wasn’t who we thought she was.

But I knew better. My mother didn’t leave like that. Not with half-folded laundry still warm in the basket. Not with her favorite mug half-full on the windowsill. Not with my drawing still magneted to the fridge, the one she’d called “a masterpiece” with a smile too wide for such a simple sketch.

She loved too fiercely to disappear.

And yet, she had.

Each night, the labyrinth returned.

Sometimes it was narrow, almost suffocating, the walls pulsing in and out like breath. Other nights it sprawled with grand archways and high ceilings echoing footsteps that weren’t mine. No matter the shape, the feeling remained—a quiet ache threaded with hope and dread.

At first, I wandered. Confused. Looking for clues. I traced my fingers along the walls and found symbols—little chalk marks, like the ones Mom left on boxes for moving day: kitchen, books, Nina’s room. Once, I found a photo of us—me on her lap, our heads pressed together like we were whispering secrets.

It wasn’t there the next night.

On the 50th day, my aunt gently suggested we “start moving on.”

I didn’t say anything, but that night in the dream, I kicked a hole in the labyrinth wall. Behind it was nothing but fog.

In the waking world, I stopped talking much. Grief has a way of curling around your voice, knotting it up so words feel like splinters.

At school, I became The Girl Whose Mom Vanished. A curiosity wrapped in silence. Teachers gave me soft smiles. Friends offered half-hugs, the kind that said “I want to help” but didn’t know how.

I didn’t blame them. I was just as lost.

The maze started changing.

I found objects.

A lipstick tube. Her favorite red.

A scarf I’d given her last Mother’s Day.

A single spoon from our mismatched kitchen drawer.

I began to believe she was leaving them for me. That her spirit, or memory, or love—whatever lingers—was trying to show me the way.

Then came the room.

It was on the 68th night. Tucked behind a spiral staircase I hadn't seen before. Inside, it smelled like lavender and rain. Her scent.

There was a chair, a record player spinning a song I didn’t recognize, and a note:

“I’m sorry, my love. I didn’t mean to leave you in the middle of the story.”

I sat down and cried so hard I forgot I was dreaming.

The therapist called it “complicated grief.” Said I might never get closure. That sometimes the mind makes a place for loss to live.

I didn’t explain the labyrinth. It wasn’t something you could draw on a clipboard.

In the 100th dream, I found her.

Not quite her. A version. She was wearing the yellow sundress she loved and holding a book she used to read me when I was little: The Secret Garden.

She smiled. “You found me.”

I wanted to run to her, but my legs felt anchored.

“This isn’t real,” I whispered.

“It doesn’t have to be,” she said.

She took my hand and placed it over my heart.

“I’m here.”

I woke up crying, but it felt different. Not sharp and hollow. More like warm rain after a drought.

I knew she wasn’t coming back. But I also knew she wasn’t really gone.

The labyrinth still comes sometimes.

But now I walk it without fear. I leave my own breadcrumbs—notes, poems, drawings on the walls. Little pieces of me for the version of myself still searching.

Grief, I’ve learned, is not a monster.

It’s a map.

Twisting, yes.

Dark, sometimes.

But if you walk it long enough, you don’t just find the person you lost.

You find yourself again, too.