Sometimes grief isn’t just sadness.
Sometimes it feels like your whole world has been taken away.
I recently thought about a woman who lost her sister suddenly. They had been together for more than 70 years. For more than 70 years, they had been sisters, best friends, companions and each other’s constant. They had never really known life without one another.
And now, suddenly, one of them is gone.
The sister who is left behind is completely shattered. Her heart hurts. Her home feels empty. The silence feels unbearable. She doesn’t know what she is supposed to do now, or how she is supposed to continue living a life that suddenly looks nothing like the life she knew.
And I think about her, and I think about how frightening grief can be when it is this big.
Because sometimes, as funeral professionals, we are standing beside someone who isn’t looking for answers. They aren’t looking for the right words. They simply want someone to understand that this hurts.
We often hear the words, “You have to move on.”
But when you have loved someone for 70 years, how do you simply move on?
Maybe we don’t.
Maybe we learn, very slowly, how to move forward while still carrying them in our hearts.
I believe that is one of the most important things we can give someone who is grieving: permission to take their time.
We don’t have to tell them that they will be okay.
We don’t have to tell them that everything happens for a reason.
Sometimes we can simply sit beside them and say:
“I know this hurts. I’m here. You don’t have to go through this moment alone.”
When your heart hurts, breathe.
When grief becomes overwhelming, sometimes we need to help our body before we can even begin to help our mind.
This is something I have been learning about through HeartMath. One of the things I find comforting is the simple idea of slowing down, putting our attention on the area of our heart, and breathing gently and slowly.
When the tears won’t stop, when your chest feels tight, when your thoughts are racing and you don’t know what to do next, you can simply stop.
Put your hand over your heart.
Take a slow, gentle breath in.
Then slowly breathe out.
Don’t try to make the grief disappear.
Don’t tell yourself you shouldn’t be hurting.
Just breathe.
Imagine that you are breathing through your heart and giving your body a moment to settle.
Sometimes we can’t change what has happened. We can’t bring our loved one back. We can’t make tomorrow less frightening.
But we can give ourselves a few quiet moments when our body doesn’t have to fight so hard.
One breath.
One moment.
One minute.
Then another.
Grief is not something we can breathe away. But sometimes a gentle breath can help us find enough calm to take the next step.
So how do we move forward when our heart is broken?
We start very small.
Get out of bed.
Have a shower.
Eat something, even if you don’t feel like eating.
Open the curtains.
Step outside for a few minutes.
Call someone.
Sit with someone.
Let someone make you a cup of tea.
And if all you can do today is cry, then cry.
There is no right way to grieve someone who has been part of your life for almost your entire life.
And there is no timetable for when you are supposed to feel better.
Who do we turn to when we feel completely alone?
We reach out.
Even when we don’t feel like it.
Sometimes the people around us don’t know what to say, and sometimes we don’t know what to say either. But we can still say:
“I’m not doing well today. Can you please come and sit with me?”
It doesn’t have to be a close family member. It might be a neighbour, a friend, a faith community, a grief counsellor, a doctor, a support group, or someone who can help connect you with the right resources.
As funeral professionals, one of the most important things we can do is remember that our relationship with a family doesn’t necessarily end when the funeral does.
Sometimes that is when the hardest part begins.
The flowers disappear.
The phone calls become fewer.
People return to their normal lives.
But the person who is grieving is still waking up every morning to the reality that the person they love is gone.
That is when loneliness can become overwhelming.
And perhaps this is where my own heart comes into this.
When I look at a family who is hurting, I don’t see a case, a file or a funeral arrangement.
I see a person who has lost someone they love.
I see the empty chair.
The unanswered phone call.
The quiet house.
The photographs.
The memories that suddenly seem to be everywhere.
My heart hurts for them.
And I think that’s okay.
Because caring deeply is part of what makes this work so meaningful to me.
How do we heal?
We don’t erase the person we lost.
We don’t stop loving them.
We don’t forget them.
Healing is learning how to carry the love and the loss together.
There may come a day when you can talk about your sister without feeling like you can’t breathe.
There may come a day when a memory makes you smile before it makes you cry.
But that day doesn’t have to be today.
Today, you just need to be gentle with yourself.
And if today is too hard, take it one hour at a time.
If an hour is too long, take it ten minutes at a time.
Grief doesn’t ask us to be strong every minute of every day.
Sometimes strength is simply admitting:
“This hurts more than I know how to handle.”
And then allowing someone else to help carry you through it.
And if you are sitting in that darkness right now, please remember this:
You don’t have to know how to live the rest of your life without them.
You only have to learn how to live this moment.
Then the next one.
Then the next.
And somewhere along the way, very slowly, you may discover that moving forward doesn’t mean leaving them behind.
It means carrying their love with you.
Because when someone has been part of your life for 70 years, they don’t simply disappear.
Their voice, their stories, their laughter, their lessons, their memories and the love you shared become part of who you are.
And perhaps that is what healing really is.
Not forgetting.
Not moving on.
But learning, one breath and one day at a time, how to carry the love forward.
Until next time, with compassion and care, wishing you peace and warmth.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
For over 35 years, Lauri-Anne Canzanese has dedicated her life to supporting the mental health and emotional well-being of others as a HeartMath-certified coach, MBSR coach, and a mental health and addictions coach. She's a Funeral Director Assistant at Carson Funeral Homes.
