By Karen Gray
This fall, I experienced the loss of my adoptive dad, my birth mom, and my stepdad, all within 30 days of each other. Three losses I never expected to face this year from three people who shaped how I exist, love, and move through the world.
If you are walking through your own goodbyes and grief this holiday season, I want you to know these 3 things:
1: You are not alone in your loss.
2: There is no right way to grieve
3: You are not required to be okay and move on-just because it is the holidays or the start of a new year.
The holidays are actually magnifying everything we feel. The empty chairs. The traditions that suddenly seem heavier or quieter. The memories that surprise us at the most unexpected and often inconvenient moments.
However, in the middle of it all, grief has actually been teaching me something quite profound.
Grief is actually just love refusing to disappear.
It’s my heart’s way of holding on to what mattered. Grief is the evidence that our loved one’s life meant something and still does. And here is the truth that has carried me through these past months.
We are their legacy.
It’s not the heirlooms we debate and struggle on whether to keep or donate. It’s not the photos, keepsakes, or boxes we store away. It is us. We are their living legacy.
The way we love. The way we lead. The way we continue to show up with gentleness, courage, and faith even when it would be easier to shut down, hide away or withdraw. Every time we choose kindness, forgiveness, truth, courage or hope, we carry them forward. Every time we light a candle, say their name, or share a story … we keep their presence alive in the world. We are proof they were here and our memories are evidence that they STILL matter.
And now … our journey gets to be an example for others.
In my own heartbreak, I’ve learned that faith does not erase the grief. It carries us through it. It reminds you that love does not end and even when we are lonely we are never alone. I believe God sits with the brokenhearted and meets us there, in our grief and sorrow. This season of life is not about performing joy, pretending to be strong when we aren’t or meeting the expectations of others. It’s about remembering that our feelings matter in this season too. Even the feelings that are tender, edgy or heavy.
Someone may be watching your courage to move through this season with grief as your partner and drawing strength from it – without you even knowing.
So if you are grieving, I want to encourage you to let this be the season you honor yourself and what you have lost. Grief will move on when it is ready, and so will you.
Until then, remember this:
You are the living legacy they left behind.
Your courage is the light someone else needs in their dark time.
Your faith will carry you into the next season.
And if you need us, you have an entire global sisterhood willing to help you walk through this season and the next. We are only a text, call or email away.
