Loving and Letting Go: A Journey With Grief

At 16, I stuffed the shock of giving CPR to my dying mom deep inside. I’d talk about it matter-of-factly, like a judge handing down a life sentence—utterly void of emotion. No one taught me how to grieve, so along with burying her six feet under, I buried my feelings too. I said I was okay when I wasn’t and found other tools to cope: drugs, alcohol, sex, and disconnection.

Yesterday, my aunt died. And as I spoke with her only daughter—my cousin Savannah—I realized how far I’ve come in the last 26 years.

“What do I do?” Savannah gasped through tears. “She was my routine. What now?”

“Great question,” I said. I knew that fear well—the chasm that opens between you and reality when someone you love is gone. “You grieve that she’s no longer physically here,” I told her, “and you don’t kill her off again.”

Not the most flowery mantra, but it gets the point across: we can choose to keep our loved ones close. By holding onto the good—the memories, the laughs, the quirks—we keep them right beside us, like a hand on our shoulder.

So that’s what we did yesterday.

When Savannah admitted, “I was jealous you got to see Tom Petty with her,” I laughed, grateful her secret had surfaced.

“Easy for you to say,” I replied, “you didn’t have to pay for $24 vodka doubles in the beer garden.”

Then I told her how I learned her mom’s favorite Tom Petty song that day—You Got Lucky—and how we danced on the grassy hillside at the Gorge Amphitheater while she sang every word. There’s never a time I hear that song and don’t go right back to that moment.

That’s another way we make death tolerable—by telling stories. By connecting through lightness and laughter. Death isn’t only darkness and shock. It’s also love. It’s also memory. It’s connection.

Later, as I sat with the weight of my aunt’s death, my husband’s hand on mine, I said what was on my mind: “I feel responsible.” “I’m selfish.” “I’m scared for my own health.”
They came out like darts hitting the target, but I knew better—these were just clouds passing through.

Not truths. Still, I needed someone with me while they passed.

We need each other in this.

If you’re struggling to stay connected during grief, imagine a fox with its foot in a trap—when you try to help, it bites. That’s instinct. Pain makes us want to protect ourselves, even from love. But healing begins when we override that instinct.

As my therapist once said, “It only takes a second, and you’re in a conversation with someone.”
All the buildup—the fear, the inner resistance—is just bramble. Once we speak, everything changes.
That’s what the health in mental health looks like.

I’ve also learned that letting go in grief doesn’t mean forgetting or moving on. It means learning to live with grief as a companion—one that shapes how we show up in the world. Grieving isn’t a chapter that ends. It’s a way of life that honors the depth of our connections. When we let go of what was, we make room for the enduring presence of those we’ve lost. We carry them forward as we live, love, and grow.

If you’re looking for more resources on grief and loss, visit my counseling resource page.

Thanks for stopping by. As always…

Love,
Jaclynn