Move forward with grief

Move forward with grief

When I first saw, “We don’t “move on” from grief. We move forward with it,” I shouted out a loud “YES!“

Moving on from grief just never quite registered for me. Throughout my life, and especially over the past 22 years, I’ve listened to many people, including my own family, who are living with grief and not moving from it.

This has been especially true for me since last September 30, when my mom died. Mom and I were quite close. We talked on the phone at least once a day, often twice and three times a day wasn’t unusual. Mom’s death was expected, she was 96 and she was ready. While we got to say “goodbye.” that doesn’t make missing her any easier.

Mom and I talked extensively about her impending death, the celebration of her life and her stern warning that my sister, brother and I had to be nice to each other or she’d come back to kick us in the butt.

The time we had together in the days before her death were magical. We looked at old family pictures, we told stories, we laughed and we cried.

Since Mom’s death, I have reached for the phone to call her at least once every day. And Mother’s Day just wasn’t the same without her.

There is a void when I reach for the phone to tell her something about my life. The loss is still there. It always will be – it is incurable. I’ve come to realize that and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

While I am learning how to move forward, it is a life journey. Grief won’t run or ruin my life but I don’t want to move on from it. I will, however, move forward with it.

We don’t “move on” from grief. We move forward with it.

In a talk that’s by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, writer and podcaster Nora McInerny shares her hard-earned wisdom about life and death. Her candid approach to something that will, let’s face it, affect us all, is as liberating as it is gut-wrenching. Most powerfully, she encourages us to shift how we approach grief. “A grieving person is going to laugh again and smile again,” she says. “They’re going to move forward. But that doesn’t mean that they’ve moved on.”

Click here for transcript