Riding the Wave of Grief

Grief reshapes us, but courage helps us begin again.

I wear many hats, but my primary role is matriarch to my family. December of 1984 filled my life with purpose and direction at the tender age of 20. By the time I was 22, I was a single mother of three. That was not the vision I had when I stood in my cap and gown at high school graduation, but life doesn’t always follow the script. You learn to roll with the changes.

Fast forward to today. At nearly 61, I am mother to four and grandmother to eighteen. That title, grandmother, has given me countless stories, joys, and memories. But it also handed me the hardest chapter of my life.

In 2023, my precious grandson Malakai, just ten years old, made his ascension after a two-year battle with brain cancer. For two years, I was there: riding to daily radiation, sitting in oncologist’s offices, waiting for MRIs, holding it together so my daughter wouldn’t fall apart. Outwardly, I was the anchor. Inwardly, I was terrified.

I learned quickly that courage doesn’t always look like standing tall, it often looks like standing steady. It’s swallowing your own fear so the ones you love can breathe. It’s offering light even when you feel swallowed in darkness. It’s holding back tears until the next red light after dropping them off at home. It’s releasing a rage scream in the shower before bed, letting the water renew you for the next day.

Malakai asked to spend his last days at home, and we honored his request. His family was his universe, but he didn’t define family just by blood. To our boy, family was anyone who touched his heart, or allowed him to touch theirs.

On January 2nd, 2023, our Malakai made his transition to a cancer-free plane. My daughter climbed into his bed to hold him in her arms one last time. Without hesitation or second thought, I stood behind her with my legs pressed against her back to secure her place beside her beautiful boy. I didn’t want her to fall from his bed.

I watched as my firstborn carefully lifted her son’s head, brushed back his soft curly hair, and rested it in the fold of her arm as she lay beside him. In the same moment, I pressed my legs against her back, holding her up while I wrapped my arms around them both. We did not let go until our boy had taken his rest with the angels.

That moment reshaped me. Grief does not pass; it changes you. It teaches you that the wave never goes away, you just learn how to ride it. Some days the wave is a soft lap against your ankles, enough to remind you it’s there but not enough to knock you off your feet. Other days, the wave is crushing, and you feel like you’re drowning in it. All you can do is ride the wave.

And each time I feel that wave rise up, I remind myself: this too is courage. Not the kind that charges into battle, but the kind that stays, holds, endures.

So when I speak about beginning again, I don’t speak as someone untouched by loss. I speak as someone who knows what it is to be broken, and to still keep living. Courage is not the absence of grief, it’s choosing life while carrying it.

Journal Prompt: Where in your own story has grief reshaped you? What courage has it carved out of you that you didn’t know you had?