Choosing Life through Grief

These words by Shakespeare capture the essence of grief—it needs an outlet. Grief demands expression, and finding ways to give sorrow words can be profoundly healing.

• Speak about your loved one to supportive family or friends. Sharing memories and saying their name can keep their presence alive in your heart.
• Speak to your loved one. Whether or not you believe they can hear you is irrelevant; the act of speaking helps release emotions and fosters healing.
• Write your thoughts in a journal. Putting pen to paper can clarify emotions and create a space for reflection.
• Express your grief through art. Drawing, painting, knitting, crocheting, or any creative medium can serve as a therapeutic outlet. The medium and your talent don’t matter—what matters is the expression.
• Indulge in play therapy. Sometimes, the child within us needs comfort, and playful activities can offer solace and a sense of peace.
• Find other outlets that allow you to express your grief, whether through music, gardening, or any activity that brings a sense of release.

By giving grief the attention it demands, we begin to loosen its grip on our lives. It doesn’t mean we forget, and it doesn’t mean the pain goes away entirely. It means we learn to live alongside it, finding moments of peace and even joy amidst the sorrow.

The Cost of Ignoring Grief

When grief is ignored, it doesn’t disappear. It festers. Suppressed grief becomes a silent force that influences our actions, our relationships, and our overall well-being. It often emerges as chronic stress, physical illness, emotional instability, or a vast range of unhealthy coping mechanisms. Over time, unacknowledged grief may erode our sense of self and leave us feeling disconnected from the world around us. By avoiding the pain, we inadvertently allow it to shape us in ways that hinder our growth and healing. The pain we avoid becomes the wall that separates us from truly living. Relationships may become strained as unresolved pain creates barriers to understanding.

Suppressed grief can make us irritable, detached, or overly dependent on distractions to avoid facing our emotions. This avoidance perpetuates a cycle where the grief continues to grow unchecked, overshadowing any happiness we might otherwise experience.

Grief that is ignored robs us of the opportunity to heal and integrate the loss into our lives. It becomes a wall that separates us from living fully, leaving us stuck in a liminal space where we can neither fully mourn nor fully move forward. By avoiding the pain, we deny ourselves the possibility of growth and transformation that can emerge from the grieving process.

Choosing Life

Choosing life doesn’t mean leaving grief behind. It means carrying it with us in a way that honors the love we’ve lost while making room for the beauty and joy that still exist. It’s about integrating grief into our lives rather than allowing it to consume us.

This process is not linear. Some days, the choice to engage with life feels impossible. Other days, it feels like progress. What matters is that we keep choosing, one small step at a time. Each step is an act of courage and love — for ourselves and for those we’ve lost.

My hope is that my journey through grief might help you trudge through the pain that is grief. I know how overwhelming it can feel, how tempting it is to push the feelings away and pretend everything is fine. But grief cannot and will not be outrun. It demands to be felt, and in feeling it, we begin to heal.

You are not alone in this journey. Others have walked this path before you, and others will walk it after you. Together, we can choose life, even in the face of profound loss. We can find meaning, purpose, and even joy again. It doesn’t diminish the love we’ve lost—it honors it.

Final Thoughts

Grief is a storm we must weather, but within that storm is the opportunity to rebuild. By facing our pain and choosing life, we honor both our love and our loss. Let’s make the courageous decision to sit with grief, to acknowledge its presence, and to move forward one step at a time. Because in the end, grief is not just about pain—it’s also about love, and love always points us toward life.