When my life partner died and I walked back into our home, my first thought was, “What do I do now? There’s nowhere left to go.” I didn’t understand grief then, how it’s just love with nowhere to land, or how, as Carl Jung said, it’s “prolonged sadness.” I didn’t realize sadness could stretch so wide, filling every corner of life, yet feel so directionless.
I tried so hard to “get over it,” not knowing you never really do. I fought to control my feelings, only to learn grief isn’t a storm to outrun—it’s a wild ride you have to surrender to, like a roller coaster you can’t escape. No one told me love was still part of the equation. Not until one day, a question stopped me cold:
How do we honor those who’re gone? How do we honor an absence?
And suddenly, it clicked.
We don’t honor them by looking up, wishing they were here. We honor them by letting their love live through us. By loving ourselves fiercely enough to carry their light forward. By healing the cracks in our hearts so their memory doesn’t just ache, it inspires.
Grief isn’t a goodbye. It’s love, reshaped. A quiet rebirth.
We don’t move on… we move with them, from within.
So I stopped trying to outrun the ride. Instead, I let love steer.
