How We Heal in Grief

ten years ago

i didn’t know anything about grief

i was 25 years old and death came

knocking at my door

it was bad enough getting a surprise

visit from death

but even worse to find out that he was

here for my daughter skyler

who was just two months old my husband

and i

found out she had a terminal condition

called spinal muscular atrophy

we’d be lucky to see her first birthday

i told death that i would do everything

i could to keep him out of our home

but def knew from experience that it was

just a matter of time

and so he waited patiently on our front

porch

and every day i would see him and every

day i would look at my daughter’s face

and know that i didn’t know how much

time we had left

or how much time any of us had left for

that matter

i would sit with my daughter at night as

she fell asleep

wondering if tomorrow would be the day

that death would come for her

i cursed death almost daily

but i realized that the fear and the

worry that i felt

watching her and wondering was robbing

me of peace

and joy so

eventually i committed to letting go

letting that fear and worry to stay

focused on the present

and eventually i started to find peace

even with death sitting by my side

over the next months death even began to

inspire me

his presence reminded me to focus

on the present to make the most of her

time together knowing

we might not know how much we have left

my husband and i spent time walking

around our neighborhood

enjoying walks exploring the georgia

aquarium

snuggling and watching movies that was

my favorite

we even had a friend gift us a

professional portrait session to

preserve memories

over the next months death and i became

closer

we spent more time together he even came

inside to sit with me

there were several days that skyler

would turn blue and i would be able to

get her back

several evenings that my husband and i

would sit around the table

and talk to death knowing

that he was going to somehow fit into

our future

with the help of other sma families and

an sma researcher

we were able to have 21 beautiful

and challenging months with our baby

girl skylar

before we had to say goodbye

the time came for death to transition

skyler out of this world

and that day was the hardest day of my

life

as i held her in my arms as she took her

last breath

the pain in my chest was indescribable

i understood how people could die of a

broken heart

i knew that i would survive

with each inhale and with each exhale

found that i was getting through those

moments

that grief in that raw moment after

losing skylar was

nothing like the grief that i learned

about through the five stages

i had heard about the argument arguing

i’m sorry the anger and the bargaining

the depression and the final acceptance

of

of grief but what i realized was that

resonated with me so much more in her

diagnosis

than in her actual death and in

researching grief and learning more

about it i realized that

these stages of grief were actually

researched and discovered for people

facing their own

death

that was really revolutionary for me

because that made so much more sense

there are these five stages that lead to

an endpoint

someone’s death

i wondered what else we had gotten wrong

about grief

we chose to bury skyler in a natural

cemetery

my husband built her box

with so much love and grief it was

heartbreakingly beautiful

ramsay creek preserve let us dig her

hole

and bury her ourselves something that

was so painful

but it felt so right something that we

could do

to honor her and take care of her

our last act as parents before putting

her in the ground

as we really just went to

that burial ground and dug we took the

shovels and

pierced the ground and used our grief

and despair to help us

we were slinging dirt and eventually it

just led to disbelief

how could we be doing this how are we

burying

our little girl

it was not an easy thing but it also was

so good

and healing i’ll never forget when it

was done we were soaked

in snot sweat and tears

we were working so hard

and that georgia red clay is tough man

and it was just so hard but it was so

good because with each piercing of the

ground

we were able to let some of that energy

and emotion flow

out and when it was done we went down to

the creek

and we washed our hands that were

covered in clay

and as the water poured over them it

felt as if

there was a cleansing happening and my

hand slowly went

from dark red to white

and as i watched the clay drift off in

the current i felt a little piece of my

pain go with it

skyler’s memorial service was just a few

days later

and it was the first time i was taught

anything formally about grief

our pastor did a phenomenal job honoring

schuyler’s life

our pain and our grief he did

such a beautiful job i hope i can do his

words justice here

but he said sometimes

in the rush to fix things to make things

better we say things that we ought not

to say

it is not okay let’s not hurry this

process

i promise you there is nothing you can

do

or say to make this better

and he looked at my husband and i and

said kyle and ashley

we are not going to try and fix your

pain

or hurry you but we’re gonna sit with

you

in this and we’re gonna ask for god’s

help

his mercy and his grace

he went on later to say that one of the

most damaging things we can do

is to ignore the pain of grief to

pretend like it doesn’t hurt

as bad as it really does we’re not doing

grief justice when we do that

his words were such a relief when i was

growing up no one really told me about

grief

i had lost relatives and friends in high

school

and really from observation i just

learned to

be sad at first and that was okay but

after some

undetermined amount of time it was just

known that you

stopped talking about it and that you

just keep it private as if it were

something that’s not acceptable

or to be ashamed of

as i went through those losses

you know i had well-intentioned people

trying to comfort me and maybe you’ve

had this experience too

where you have a pet maybe that you

lost as a kid and your parents went out

and replaced it quickly without really

talking to you about it

maybe you had a heartbreak and that’s

something that

your friends tried to encourage you with

to say

it’s gonna be okay you’ll find someone

else someone better

well what they’re basically saying is

that it’s not okay to be pain

in pain right now and they’re trying to

force you into the future

but the future isn’t here yet and

we need to sit with the pain in the

present because that’s where the healing

happens

we can only experience life in the here

and the now

on the inhale and the exhale each moment

that we have together

if we try to live in the past it can

lead to depression and if we try to live

in the future it can lead to anxiety

life and hap life and love happen in the

present moment

and grief and healing happen in the

present too

after the memorial we returned home to

an empty kid’s room

i could barely stand it but i really

wasn’t ready to change it either

as i would look around the room i would

see her photos

framed around on the shelves

and they were such a stark reminder of

the permanence of her loss

and my heart would see her all over

again and i would just have to turn them

down

but as the weeks went on i just missed

her

and i wanted to see her sweet smile

again

and so one by one i started turning the

photos back up

and on ugly like on hard days

i would ugly cry with them like the kind

of ugly crack you don’t do in front of

other humans

like snot pouring out of your face

sounds that even scare your own

self and that was just such a freedom to

have to sit with those photos and let

that out

on the good days i could look at them

and smile at them

and see her smiling back at me and tell

her how much i missed her

on the lonely days they gave me a way to

hold her

when she wasn’t here to hold

over time i realized that these photos

were the greatest tool i had in my grief

they gave me

a space to feel the fullness of whatever

i was feeling without

fear i didn’t have to worry about

judgment from anyone else or

expectations

it was amazing and i wanted to give that

gift

to others in that time of grieving i was

able to transition

from focusing inward and being in

survival mode to starting

to look outward again and so i keep my

ears open

and any time i heard of anyone facing a

terminal diagnosis

i would volunteer a portrait session

i knew how special those photos were and

the cool thing is people took me up on

it so

i showed up for this family and

the impact was incredible this little

girl

was able to introduce her new friends to

her daddy

through this book after he died of

cancer

a mom was validated on mother’s day

weeks after she had lost her first baby

i wish i could tell you all the stories

but

for the sake of time i’ll just let you

know that

every single story had a profound impact

on me and inspired me to keep showing up

even when times got hard

this led me to create love not lost a

non-profit organization

focused on supporting people in grief

with love and empathy

as we showed up to serve families facing

a terminal diagnosis

we were listening to their stories to

their struggles

and we learn that there’s this trend of

people not showing up

people who they thought they could count

on for support friends and family

just disappearing we would hear

that they were afraid to lose their jobs

because

of their underperformance in grief or

even losing

their job because of missing too much

work caring for a loved one on hospice

as love not lost grew i was invited to

speak to more places

and in that i met so many incredible

people

and i would hear that you know

afterwards people would line up

afterwards to talk to me and

they would tell me how much they

appreciated my talk and how they didn’t

know how to support their loved ones or

their friends or co-workers

and so i started realizing like that’s a

big gap okay

then i would have executive leaders come

up to me and tell me

how they weren’t sure how they were

going to support people on their teams

going through grief

and they needed help

so without um

you know it’s like there’s so much of

the unknown

and misconceptions if that’s you and

you’re feeling like yeah i don’t know

what to do with either i don’t know what

to do with grief either and i want to

show up for someone

please know you’re not alone

there are so many misconceptions that

can make grief

even worse people having unhealthy

expectations

or grieving people feeling like they’re

doing it wrong

that only adds to the pain so let me be

clear

grief is not a singular emotion that

anyone can just

move on or get over it’s complex

we grieve because we love grief is just

love in another form

it’s the yen to the yang of love

we never lose love and we never lose our

grief

it’s a state of being it’s a process of

healing

and what i learned is this to heal we

must grieve

to grieve we must feel and to feel we

must be present

even in those hard and uncomfortable

moments

that are so challenging to sit with

2010 is the year that death came

knocking on my door

it’s 20 20 now it is a wild year

we are all experiencing loss and trauma

of all kinds

and i want you to know if you’re

grieving you’re human

and you’re not alone grief is a natural

and normal response to loss of something

we loved or valued

there are many types of grief we are

experiencing

collective grief as we all go through

this together

we have anticipatory grief of the loss

yet to come

we have ambiguous grief where you’re

losing

not the person but maybe who they were

you’re me you’re sorry we’re all going

through

different losses and we have compounding

losses too

grief that happens with more grief

happening behind it before we can even

process what’s already happening

we have losses that are domino affecting

and creating secondary losses

we are all going through this together

and it is so

so hard the acute grief that we’re

feeling now

and the chronic grief that we’ll be

feeling for years to come

and it’s easy to think of grief in the

hard moments

but grief happens in the happy moments

too with a marriage

you lose the sense of independence

with having a baby you lose a sense of

freedom

those losses often go unacknowledged but

they’re important to feel

you may not be able to put into words

what you’re feeling in your grief

it may feel like you’re foggy or cloudy

or you’re sick

physically or anxiety or depression but

whatever grief you have in your life

i believe that 20 20 is asking you to

listen

with each instance of loss and trauma

in the midst of pain we receive an

invitation to heal

to slow down to be present

to listen and respond with intention

healing for you won’t look the same as

healing for me

just as grief doesn’t look the same for

you as it does for me

we all experience it uniquely even

myself

the different losses that i’ve

experienced are all unique in their own

way

but the good news is that grieving is a

skill it is something you can get better

at

it took me a while to realize that my

body was designed to heal

and that grief was working for me and

not against me

as i improved in the areas of

mindfulness and meditation

and self-care i got better at healing

and grief

truly listening because after all our

emotions

are the core of being human

emotions our energy a frequency

their energy e motion in motion

and as we can feel them and let them

move through us

we can heal i think that’s a big reason

why

digging our daughter’s grave was so

great because they helped us with that

motion

getting those feelings out there’s a

narrative in our society though that

emotions are bad that if you’re a man

feeling too much can make you seem weak

or too feminine

and for women that you can be seen as

dramatic

or too much this is a really dangerous

and damaging narrative in our society

and it’s something that i hope we can

change

our emotions are the language of the

body

they help us connect to ourselves and

each other

and so our battle is against

distractions

and staying present we have so much

noise in our lives

the physical noise of traffic and

construction to the digital noise of

advertising consumerism

scrolling on social media 24-hour news

reporting

and then we have the noise inside of our

heads

that noise the lies that were not good

enough that we should be ashamed of

something we’ve done

or that we’re not worthy of love that is

the noise that can cause us to check out

to disconnect from ourselves to avoid

pain

and our society tells us that pain is

bad but what if pain

is here to help us heal

i believe that if we can lean into that

pain

if we can be present in those hard

emotions

we can stay connected to ourselves to

heal

we can’t focus on other people until we

focus on ourselves

i don’t know if you’ve heard of the

phrase hurt people hurt people

but i believe that to be true but i also

believe

that healed people heal people

and so as we continue to show up for

ourselves

and face the things that we need to face

we learn how to hold space for ourselves

to love ourselves with

uncondition and acceptance so that we

can show up for others and do the same

i think being present in life is one of

our greatest challenges pain

loss and grief can be really hard but

they can be really helpful

as a catalyst to change change that we

wouldn’t have otherwise made

i can never go back to the person i was

before skylar and nor would i want to

healing is a process of becoming whole

not reverting to who we were i joke

around that

my life before skyler was bs like bs

uh before skylar but also bs total bs

because

i cared so much about image and name

brand

and awards and what people thought of me

so much more than i cared for myself

it was hard but that grief

wrecked me in good ways too it gave me a

fresh perspective

something i’m so grateful to have at

such a young age

to realize that love is the most

important thing that we have

on this earth it connects us all

it connects us to ourselves and to each

other

i believe it brings healing too and at

love not lost the driving question

of our organization is how can we love

people better

remember how i told you that there were

people who were hurting

and people who were not showing up for

them

well we saw a way that we could bridge

that gap

and help people show up in love

and so we connected them through tools

like how can i love you better.com

when we heard about the people who at

work were feeling

um concerned that they were losing their

job or

going to be bullied we created a grief

and empathy support

program for executive leadership to

bring healing to the workplace

the key in showing up is not to be

afraid of your own emotions whatever

they are

and create a safe place for others and

not trying to fix or change

anything just letting it be

our mission is to revolutionize the way

we heal in grief

because death doesn’t discriminate it’s

here for each one of us

we just don’t know when that time is but

death isn’t the bad guy

distraction is disconnection

disconnection keeps us from loving

it keeps us from feeling and it keeps us

from healing

can we learn to be mindful can we

choose to be people who fight

distraction and anxiety

and intentionally stay present even in

the hard moments

i believe we can and i invite you to

join me

as we become healed people who heal

people