I lost my dear sister 7 years ago and my mother a year and a half ago. It is completely normal to have that grief occasionally swell up very unexpectedly. For me, it is often music that will set off that grief again. My mother was an organist, and semi-frequently, a hymn we sing at church or a prelude or postlude the organist plays will remind me of her. Often it is a piece she, herself, played.

My best friend has lost both of her parents. In fact, our parents were best friends for probably 50 years and we grew up almost as one big family with two sets of parents. Her experience is very much the same. It’s always surprising how quickly and unexpectedly that loss comes up.

The tears are often a mixture of sadness of loss with fond memories. I’ve learned those tears are normal and a very common experience for many people. I’ve seen similar reactions in other friends.

I think your therapist is feeding you a line of some theoretical book somewhere along the line without a sense of experience. My therapist and I talked extensively about normal grief following my sister’s death. He spoke of the loss of his cousin, some 40 years ago, that still hits him at times quite unexpectedly. He told me to simply honor the grief and the memories and not pathologize that grief. His acceptance and normalizing of my grief was one of the most healing experiences in all of my years of therapy.