Allow - Good Grief

When We Don’t Realize We’re Grieving Photo by Daniel Reche on Pexels.com When most people hear the word grief, they think of death. The loss of a parent.A spouse.A child.A close friend. And while those losses are among life’s deepest heartbreaks, they are not the only experiences that ask us to grieve. Over the years, I’ve come to understand that grief isn’t simply the response to death and…

There was a time in my life when I measured a good day by how much I accomplished. How many boxes I checked.How many errands I completed.How many people I helped.How much work I finished before finally sitting down. If I was productive, I felt successful. If I rested, I often felt guilty. Looking back now, I realize I wasn’t alone. Many of us have been taught, either directly or indirectly,…

We Never Begin Empty-Handed Photo by Eugenio Felix on Pexels.com There are moments in life when it feels as though we’re beginning all over again. A relationship ends. Children grow up and build lives of their own. A career changes. Retirement arrives. A loved one dies. Our health shifts. We move to a new home, a new community, or simply into a new season of life that looks nothing like…

There are seasons in life that don’t ask us to start over. They ask us to pause. To breathe. To look around. And to ask ourselves a question we may not have considered for a very long time. Who am I becoming? For much of my life, I didn’t spend a great deal of time asking that question. Like many people, I was busy living. I embraced the roles that mattered deeply to me. I was a wife, a…

The Part Nobody Talks About For a long time, my life felt like a series of emergencies. A phone call.A diagnosis.A hospitalization.A funeral.Another responsibility.Another loss.Another problem that needed solving. There was always something demanding immediate attention. For years, I became very good at responding. I adapted.I adjusted.I stepped up. I learned how to function while grieving,…

Where Have I Been? Photo by VISAL VIJAYAN on Pexels.com If you’ve been following along for a while, you may have noticed something unusual. For the first time since launching this blog, I went quiet. No weekly posts.No reflections.No scheduled thoughts appearing every Tuesday morning. Just…………………….silence. The truth is, I needed it. Over the last couple of years, I’ve written extensively…

There are seasons in life where surviving is the goal. You wake up.You handle what needs to be handled.You keep moving forward because stopping isn’t an option. Survival is not failure. In fact, it’s one of the most powerful instincts we have. But surviving and living are not the same thing. Surviving keeps us moving.Living allows us to feel. It allows curiosity to return.It invites…

Something I’ve noticed lately is how healing sometimes arrives in moments we don’t plan. Not in the big milestones or the days we circle on calendars, but in the small, ordinary pieces of life. A laugh that catches you off guard.A quiet cup of coffee before the house wakes up.A memory that makes you smile instead of ache. These moments don’t erase grief or responsibility. They don’t magically…

Some people in this world carry more than most. They’re the ones who organize the appointments.Who check in on family members.Who notice when something feels off.Who step forward when everyone else hesitates. They rarely call attention to it. In fact, many of them downplay what they’re carrying because they’ve grown used to being “the capable one.” But being capable doesn’t mean things are…

There are days when the mind refuses to settle. It runs through conversations.Replays moments.Anticipates problems that haven’t even happened yet. Grief, responsibility, and stress have a way of doing that to us. The mind tries to solve everything at once, even when nothing can be solved in that moment. When that happens, I don’t try to force calm. I’ve learned that the harder we chase it, the…

This is for the ones holding more than most people realize. For the caregivers.The advocates.The ones managing grief alongside responsibility.The ones who keep showing up because someone has to. If you’re tired in a way that sleep doesn’t fix –If you feel like life keeps asking more before you’ve recovered from the last thing –If you’re strong because you’ve had no choice – You’re not…

After days that are/were emotionally charged hospital visits, hard conversations, advocacy, grief – my body doesn’t need answers. It needs regulation. For a long time, I thought recovery meant talking it through or making sense of what happened. What I’ve learned instead is that my system needs something much simpler. Stillness.Warmth.Predictability. After a heavy day, I don’t ask myself to…

There are seasons where words come from a place of urgency and where truth needs to be spoken because holding it in costs too much. The past while has been one of those seasons for me. I’ve written about layered grief.About caregiving anger.About advocacy, exhaustion, and moral injury.About love that stands its ground even when the systems around it fall short.And most recently, about MAiD,…

There is a kind of grief that comes with not knowing when someone will die. And then there is the grief that comes with knowing. When my uncle made his decision, we were given five days. Five days to absorb what the mind resists.Five days where time behaved strangely – speeding up and slowing down all at once.Five days where every conversation felt both ordinary and monumental. This kind of…

Six hours before my uncle died, I said, “See you later.” Not goodbye.Not farewell. Just see you later. Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com At the time, it felt natural. Almost instinctive. As if my body knew something my mind wasn’t ready to articulate. I brought him home for his final days, as he wished. Leaving that house after our last visit was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.…

There are some decisions that don’t come from despair, but from clarity. My uncle made one of those decisions in November. After several years of living with Parkinson’s disease, years marked by loss of mobility, independence, and dignity’ he chose to participate in Medical Assistance in Dying or MAiD. It’s a term that sounds clinical. Almost tidy.But there is nothing tidy about the courage it…

There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that doesn’t come from doing too much all at once. It comes from being the one people count on over and over again. The one who notices.The one who responds.The one who fills the gaps when something needs to be handled, managed, or held together. At first, it doesn’t feel like a burden. It feels like responsibility. Capability. Love. Maybe even…