The Hidden Beauty of Grief
I did not lose my father and my brother in the same way. My dad’s death felt like the slow dimming of a porch light you always assumed would stay on. My brother’s death felt like a bomb.
When my dad died, I did what perfectionists do. I held it together. I tidied up my grief for everyone around me, folded it into neat and manageable squares. It was deeply painful, but I kept it contained. All my survival strategies working overtime to keep the performance on and keep any sign of vulnerability in check.
Texting back every single condolence text in a timely manner. Sending work emails, “Apologies for the delay. My dad just died.” I look back and give that Jenn some love. She was doing the best she could.
When my brother died, there was no containing it. It was unrelentless. Crying on the bathroom floor so much that you throw up a little. There was no spreadsheeting my way out of this. No distracting my way through it like I had before. It bulldozed me and the identity I built to survive.
And, yet, that destruction was the start of my freedom.
We think grief is just about missing someone. But real grief? It’s exposure. It strips away the parts of you that perform and self-abandon. Performance requires energy, and when you are gutted, you don’t have the energy for all that pretending.
What remained, for what felt like the first time in my life, was real. I wasn’t performing. I was authentic. Vulnerable. Me.
Grief is holy ground because it is honest. It rearranges your nervous system. It reorganizes your priorities. It dissolves the illusion of control. It asks one brutal question: If everything can disappear so easily… who the f*ck are you really?
That question led me on a beautiful journey back to myself. Grief exposed how fragile the scaffolding of my identity truly was…all the perfectionism, over-achieving, and the proving.
My brother’s soul-shattering loss broke me. But once I looked at all the fragments of myself, I knew it was time for a stronger rebuild. This time not from fear. From sovereignty.
But this is the part I whisper, because it feels almost dangerous to say out loud: grief gave me depth I am not sure I could have accessed any other way. It stripped my life down to what mattered and made me feel infinitely more alive.
If you are in fresh grief, I will not tell you there is a silver lining, because there isn’t one you can see from inside it. But I will tell you this: you are not unraveling. You are being revealed. Nothing about this is weakness. Grief is an initiation.
And one day, not today, not tomorrow, but one day, you may look back and realize the worst thing that ever happened to you was also the moment you stopped pretending.
And that? Is holy.
