01/23/2026
Grief leaves you forever changed. And unlike a mood disorder, like anxiety or depression, there is no pill for feeling better. You must walk (or crawl or slog) through each excruciating moment. Fortunately, it does improve. But not with time. With support and with hard work.
It is so.
When you lose that person who gave you unconditional love, you feel alone. You miss their presence, miss the physicality of their expression and your memories of and with them become entombed in sepia-toned, grief-fraught amber.
The way they saw you and loved you is enshrined, because no one else in the world can love you or see you the way they did. It is easy to become entrapped in that state of constant remembering, it can become obsessive when held too long as the physical processes of the mind remap synaptic connections fused in new pathways by the chemical remorselessness of thought and emotional carving.
The literal “crack” that results from the trauma opens you up and you are presented with a choice. The grief must be felt, the agony of loss must be experienced and there is no way past that. The only way out is through and that process takes time. There is no rushing through the grief process.
Sometimes I will just be going through my day and something will remind me of my mama and a primal scream will arise, unbidden, and I find myself in tears, in a coffee shop, at work, watching a show at home.
Other times she comes to me in a gentle cloaking of love and wisdom, seemingly hovering over me, smiling and embracing me from the non-physical realm of existence.
That missing never seems to go away. But the process of incorporating that love into daily life is an integral part of the healing process. Remembering the good and the bad times becomes an act of divine forgiveness for your own lack of mindfulness, for not appreciating what you had when you had it or, recognizing the times when you did honor your loved ones and showed that respect in ways that they could feel and see.
Identity does shift. We do become someone different as we incorporate who they were into who we are. If they are a family member or close friend, they live on through us in tangible and intangible ways, as we remember and deploy the lessons we learned with and through them into our own understanding of how life should be lived. Or not.
And we share them, invoke them thereafter in our thoughts, words and deeds. Because we are no longer alone, in the sense that their physical presence is gone. They are with us, always, available for consultation and conversation in ways that provide us comfort and, eventually, we arrive at that place known as the “peace which surpasses all understanding”.
God be with us in all ways and at all times. 🙏🏿🖤🙏🏿
