Is it normal to feel random sadness long after a loved one passes?

I’m truly sorry for your loss.
Your feelings are perfectly normal! When my mother passed (years ago), even after a few years, I would sometimes have to remind myself that she was no longer just a phone call away.

Sometimes it’s just a small thing that you would like to share that can remind you of things like that.

I didn’t mourn my grandmother properly until last Christmas, and she died in 2011.

Grief is always ok, no matter how you personally feel it. Feelings are never wrong.

I’m happy that you loved your grandmother so thoroughly that you can grieve her. May you find comfort in happy memories.

I’m sorry for your loss, as well.

Yes, what you’re feeling is normal. I joke that I’ve been an orphan for the past 14 years now – and that same old sadness comes back. No, it’s not a funny joke; that’s just a way of coping.

But I’ve been feeling a similar sadness – more than “nostalgia”, but less than full-on grief – for losses that happened decades ago. I accept that the sadness I feel now is the price for having loved in the past.

Yes. My Grampa died in 1985; I still miss him at odd moments, usually when something reminds me of him.

Sure, I think it happens to all of us, even years later. You will see, hear or even smell something that reminds you of your loved one and that will trigger memories that bring both joy and sadness, many times simultaneously. Cherish the memories.

I’m curious, so it is common even after several years to randomly feel sadness and hurt even after so long? Not so often but out of the blue?

I don’t know that it happens totally “out of the blue”; there usually seems to be a trigger. (That freighted word, these days.) But there will be a thought about something that happens at work (because Dad and I were in the same industry), or a crossword puzzle clue (Mom was into those) that “I’ll have to remember to tell… oh. No.”

Or as @rojo has noted, it could be a landscape or other scene, a scent of something cooking (Dad made awesome soups, but never the same one twice), a fire (we always had fires at the summer place on cool evenings in August and September) or nearly anything else.

Two nights ago I had a dream – and this, I guess, really was “out of nowhere” – about the way a particular sticky window opened with a rattle and a bang at the summer place, and the chalky feel of the paint of its trim. But that could also have been weather-related, as we’ve just had a great rainstorm last night, and which I was planning for.

Totally normal. The ways of grief are strange and not a straight line.

As I posted above, I still miss my mom. She passed in 1996. I miss my dad too, especially when I hear music I think he would like. He passed in 1988.

It is normal. But the death that has affected me more than any others is the death of our little dog. Maybe it is partly because I was the one who took him to the vet and watched him being put to sleep. Never again. It was just too close for me to take and I still find myself with tears in my eyes when I allow myself to think of Donnie.

:( Strauss, sorry to hear. I worry about my parents as they get older and it becomes more clear how important it is to make memories as much as we can because that is all we’ll have.

♪♫♪♫ preserve your memories, for they’re all that’s left to you ♪♫♪♫

I am sorry for your loss. Grieving is a process. And yes, what you're experiencing is normal. No need to worry. It will get better over time.