In Grief, I Carry Love Forward

Radiance Code 4: I Celebrate My Selves Who Loved and Were Loved

Dec 28, 2025

The holidays have a way of stirring what lives just beneath the surface.
They collapse time—bringing past and present into the same room—and invite us to feel not only what is, but what was.

For several years, I spent the holiday season in Rome with a sister‑friend I loved deeply -- since I was 16 — Gail. December there became ours—a time she delighted in shaping with care. She planned where we would go, who we would see, and which cafés, dinners and gatherings would embrace us. Through her, I came to know and love her Rome family, friends, her rhythms, and the life she had built. She was my North Star of connection and adventure. And in that shared world, I became a particular version of myself—open, sweetly companioned, deeply witnessed. And so cherished. A history of shared confidences and much laughter trailed behind us.

Two years ago, she passed away after a long, courageous battle with metastatic cancer.

This year, I am home.
And the contrast is stark.

What I feel is not only grief for her absence, but grief for the self I was when we were together. This, I’m learning, is one of grief’s most tender and least spoken truths:

We don’t just grieve the people we’ve lost—we grieve the selves we were allowed to be in their presence.

Radiance Code 6: As My Love Carries On, Grief Becomes Gratitude

Women, Holidays, and the Grief We Carry

Holidays have a particular weight for women.

We are often the designers of the holiday spirit—the ones who hold memory, continuity, warmth, beauty, and emotional labor. We tend traditions, mark time, and keep the flame of connection alive for families and communities.

And yet, beneath the orchestration of joy, many of us carry a quieter truth.

As we age, grief accumulates.
Not all at once—but layer by layer.

Those we lose— Parents, siblings, best friends, high school and college companions. First loves and lovers. Especially spouses. The people who witnessed our early becoming, our first dreams, our heartbreaks and reinventions. Every holiday, especially, how we miss them.

These were the participatory witnesses to our lives. They remembered us in ways no one else could.

When they leave, something subtle but profound happens. We can feel diminished—not because our lives are smaller, but because parts of our story lived between us. Their memories leave with them. And we are left holding memories that can no longer be shared with them.

man sitting on rock statue — Photo by Julia Kadel on Unsplash

After my sassy and always cheerful, 93 year-old aunt passed, I discovered a shoebox among her belongings filled with dozens of obituary cards. Each card marked a life that mattered to her. Each one held shared moments, laughter, history. My heart ached imagining the quiet weight of losing so many people who had walked alongside her through different chapters of her life.

This, too, is grief.

Not only missing the people we love—but missing the shared remembering.

The Paradox of Grief

When grief is buried or ignored, it can constrict us. It can dull spontaneity, narrow our emotional range, and make celebration feel effortful or performative.

But grief that is acknowledged becomes something else.

It deepens us.
It refines our tenderness.
It clarifies what mattered—and therefore what still matters.

Grief sharpens gratitude, not as forced positivity, but as reverence. Love no longer feels casual or assumed. It feels precious because it was real.

Perhaps grief is not the opposite of joy.
Perhaps it is the soil that teaches joy how to grow roots.

Practices of Remembrance, Gratitude, and Self‑Honoring

1. The Witness Journal
Choose one person you miss. Write about:

Who you were when you were with them
What qualities of yourself came alive in their presence
What they mirrored back to you that still belongs to you

This is about honoring yourself as much as remembering them.

low-angle photo of lightened candles — Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash

2. The Golden Moments Practice
List a handful of moments—ordinary or extraordinary—you shared with someone who has passed. Notice what these moments reveal about your values, your joys, your way of loving. These qualities did not leave with them. They live on through you.

3. Gratitude Without Erasure
Place one hand on your heart and acknowledge both truths:

“I miss you.”
“I am grateful for what we shared.”
“ You are with me…always, and I will remember for us both.”

Let gratitude sit beside grief, not replace it.

4. Honoring the Self That Loved
Light a candle and name the version of yourself that existed within a cherished relationship. Thank that self—for her openness, her courage, her capacity to love deeply. Invite her forward into your present life.

5. Ritual of Return
Choose a place, tradition, or experience that connects you to a loved one and reclaim it in your own way—not to recreate the past, but to continue the story. Love does not end; it evolves.

Carrying Forward

I now remember my dear friend not only through our bond, but through the many friendships we deepened together. She lives in the welcoming, warm circles of connection she helped create. (She and I were also part of a life-long sisterhood trio we named the “Hunny Bunnies” so the good news is that our third Bunny and I can share our memories and the Selves we cultivated with her.)

Yes, I will return to Rome.
And I will celebrate.

Not as an act of denial, but as devotion. And I will not be alone in so doing.