Surviving Grief

🌅 The Quiet After Goodbye "He could feel a hand on his shoulder. "All right," he said softly. "All right." He stood at his walker. He could sense eyes staring at him. "Goodbye," he said to the coffin. He turned on his walker and began to move away. It was a day of sun, warm, bright, and a soft wind from the west. The earth was green. The sun felt good on his face and hands."  —TERRY KAY  There's a strange silence that follows the funeral — a holy stillness, like creation itself has paused in reverence. The moment feels suspended, sacred, unbearable. And somehow beautiful. 📜 Rituals That Hold Us The rituals help. They give form to the chaos. A service. A reading. A closing prayer. These traditions remind us what to do when we no longer know what to feel. No, rituals don’t heal us. But they hold us until we can begin to heal. And maybe that’s enough. I am learning to be held. Learning to let the simple moments carry me. Sometimes, the s...

 Firsts After Loss: The Fork on the Table  and the Ache in the Heart The day goes by like a shadow o’er the heart, With sorrow, where all was delight. —STEPHEN FOSTER 🍴 Grief in the Fork Sometimes it’s hard to remember how life felt before loss shifted the ground beneath us—like a landslide, like an earthquake. In the early days, we began to track time by “firsts.” The first trip to the grocery store. The first movie I watched alone. The first time setting the table… with one less place. I remember my first vividly. My mom died two days before New Year’s. Since then, I haven’t celebrated a single holiday. Not New Year’s, not Christmas, not the Fourth of July. Only birthdays now—and even those feel different. The joy faded with her voice, with her light. Without my mom, the calendar feels hollow . Tawni—my niece, my girl—used to call me every birthday. I waited for her that year. Then I remembered. And just last night, Bryce reached into the drawer and grabbed three forks for ...

 The Anger I Was Ashamed to Feel – And the Love That Never Left "She taught me that grief is a time to be lived through, experienced fully, and that the heavens will not fall if I give voice to my anger against God in such a time.  --Elizabeth Watson ⚓Introduction – Anchoring in Today's Passage  Today's passage from Healing After Loss hit hard.  It gave me permission to feel what I've been burying — anger.  Yes, I'm angry at myself. There was a season in our lives when all Mark and I did was fight. ䷼The Truth – Naming the Guilt and Conflict There was a time I hated him. That feels like a horrible thing to write. But it's the truth. But we were falling apart — not in love, not in sync. We fought constantly while trying to build a life, a business, and somehow hold ourselves together after so many personal losses.  I had just lost my mom, and it felt like the ground beneath me crumbled. I felt misunderstood. Overwhelmed. Lost.  There were mome...

🌧️  Coming Through the Storm — Even When It Hurts "I will use all my wisdom and power to come through this well." Today, that line felt like a whisper from deep inside me. A reminder that even when I feel weak, I am not empty. Even in pain, I still have something left. Grief is tearing at me again. I miss his presence so deeply — it feels like a physical weight. I keep listening, hoping to feel him near. But the silence echoes. And yet, I'm here. Still breathing and still writing. Isaiah 40:29 says, "He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak." That's what I'm leaning on today. The wisdom God has poured into me through love, loss, and faith. The power that lives in my soul, even when I don't feel strong. I don't have to "fix" my grief. I have to live through it. Trusting that even this pain is part of a process. A birthing of something more profound. Something sacred. 💔When the Grief Hits Hard Again Today hurts...

🕊️If You Love Me, Let Me Go Grief, Memory, and the Things That Bring Them Back Today's "Healing After Loss "  began with a powerful line:   "If you love me, let me go."  It reminded me of Olivia Newton-John's heartfelt song  "If You Love Me (Let Me Know),"  a song about love, longing, and the silent pain of feeling unloved. "Before too long, I built my world around you… If you love me, let it be. If you don't, then set me free.” Martha Hickman reflected on how we might be projecting our own needs and desires onto what we believe our loved ones would want. She suggested that it's all conjecture—our pain shaping the narrative of their absence. But I gently disagree. 🐦 Grief Is a Soundtrack, a Scent, a Spark For me, grief is more than reflection. It’s a soundtrack. A scent. A shadow. A frog on a shelf. A birdhouse in the tree. A coffee cup that’s no longer filled. These simple things bring my loved ones back to me. Not physically— ...

🕊️The Unknown Future “The future is not yet ours perhaps it never will be if it comes it may come wholly different from what we have foreseen let us shut our eyes then to that which god hides from us and keeps in reserve in the treasures of his deep counsels let us worship without seeing let us be silent let us abide in peace.”  —Francois De Salignac De La Mothe Fenelon  💭 Drifting into the Unknown Today’s reflection from  Healing After Loss  struck a deep chord in me. It began with this powerful truth: “The future is not yet ours; perhaps it never will be.” That’s a hard thing to accept—especially in grief. I catch myself drifting into the past, holding tight to memories… Then suddenly, I leap ahead, trying to predict a future that feels too empty, too unknown. And I worry over what might still come. I ache for what could’ve been. 🔄 Wasted Energy, Heavy Burdens Reading further, I realized how much energy I’ve spent imagining the worst. As if grief alone weren’t e...

Bringing Him Home 🌅 The Funeral Home Today, Bryce and I went to the funeral home. We picked up the death certificates. We brought Mark home. They handed him to us in a black box placed inside a small tote bag. So ordinary. So final. It’s strange how something as enormous as a person’s life can be carried in your hands. Bryce wants to buy an urn—something he can paint himself and keep close. But for now, Mark remains in the black box. Simple. Quiet. Heavy in more ways than one. 🙏 Healing After Loss After we returned home, I opened  Healing After Loss . Today’s reading said: “The sky is the daily bread of the eye.” And I instantly thought of Mark. He loved the sky. Sunsets. Sunrises. Stars and planets. Eclipses and meteor showers. He had a passion for astronomy and was always taking photos—especially of sunsets over Flathead Lake. He said that’s when he felt most at peace. Maybe that’s where I’ll look for him now. In the deep blues before dawn. In the fire-orange brush of evening l...

  The Grief I Carry I thought today would be about missing Mark. I was going through his phone, checking messages and seeing what I needed to back up so I could reset it. But as the tears came, so did more names. More faces. More ache. Mom Dad Bill- my stepdad Dawn- my sister Tawni- my niece And Mark   Each loss etched into my soul. Each one layered on top of the last, like waves that never fully recede before the subsequent one crashes in. Grief is strange like that. Some days, I move through the motions. I smile. I talk. I function. And then a message, a photo, or even a blank screen stirs everything up again. The missing floods came like a wave I didn't see coming. Today's reading from Healing after Loss reminded me of something I've been struggling with. It spoke to the idea that grief—especially "old" grief—doesn't go away. It just changes form. People often hesitate to bring up our loved ones, worried it will reopen wounds. But ho...

Living Day by Day The Present Moment The present moment is significant, not as the bridge between past and future, but by reason of its contents, contents which can fill our emptiness and become ours, if we are capable of receiving them.  -Dag Hammarskjold The Healing Journey – Embracing Grief and Finding Strength Grief is a journey that lacks a set timeline. Each day brings a different challenge, and as we continue forward, we learn to carry the weight of loss, not as a burden, but as a part of who we are. In my second video on healing after loss, I delve into how we can find strength in the process and hold on to the memories of those we have lost, allowing them to guide us through the most difficult moments. Navigating Through Grief: A Day-by-Day Approach The most difficult aspect of grief is the uncertainty. We do not always know how we will feel from one day to the next. But that is okay. Healing does not require us to have it all figured out right away. It is about taki...

As Long As I Breathe:   A Grief Journey Begins Introduction: Why I'm Writing On June 14, 2025, my husband, Mark Anthony Fiorentino, took his last breath after a long and courageous battle with Stage 4 Metastatic Melanoma. His strength, love, and deep sense of responsibility to our family never wavered—not even in the face of pain. Today, I begin this blog. I've been sharing grief videos on Flip, but I knew Mark would want me to take this further. This space is where I'll share memories, sorrow, gratitude, and everything in between. I hope someone out there finds a little light in the shadows.   The Love We Shared Mark wasn't just my husband—he was my warrior, my partner of 30 years, and the one who brought me coffee in bed even when I was moody. He held this family together with quiet strength and stubborn determination. He never had the opportunity to have a biological child. Never met grandchildren. Some of his dreams went unfulfilled. And yet—he gave us everythi...