I used to think healing would feel graceful.
I thought maybe one day I would simply understand everything that happened to me and somehow rise from it wiser, calmer, stronger.
But real grief didn’t feel graceful at all.
It felt like running a hundred miles an hour straight into a brick wall.
And when I hit it, I didn’t suddenly become enlightened.
I collapsed.
I rolled around in the confusion of it.
I questioned everything.
Even after life stopped spinning, it still took time to figure out how to stand back up again.
For me, the first death wasn’t someone dying.
It was the death of the life I thought I was living.
I believed I was building a future with someone I loved. When something inside me whispered that something wasn’t right, I asked. More than once. Every time, I was reassured that everything was okay, and because I loved him, I chose to believe him.
Then one ordinary evening, after asking God to show me what I couldn’t see...
God did.
It wasn’t just a relationship that ended.
An entire future disappeared.
The music.
The dreams.
The life I thought I was walking toward.
What hurt almost as much as the loss itself were the truths I discovered afterward.
Sometimes grief reveals things we didn’t want to see.
About people.
About relationships.
About ourselves.
About the stories we’ve been telling ourselves because they felt safer than asking harder questions.
And maybe that’s the part no one really talks about.
We hear phrases like:
Everything happens for a reason.
Or:
This terrible thing had to happen so something beautiful could come later.
But honestly, I don’t fully believe that.
I don’t believe God creates tragedy as some sort of trade agreement for blessings.
Sometimes people make crooked choices.
Sometimes promises are broken.
Sometimes hearts break.
Sometimes entire futures disappear overnight.
But I do believe God knows how to redirect us through places God never desired for us to walk.
I used to think that if something felt off, eventually I would know exactly why.
Life doesn’t always work that way.
Sometimes we sense a whisper long before we understand the story.
Sometimes we ask the hard questions.
Sometimes we’re met with answers that quiet our concerns because they come from someone we love and trust.
Looking back, I don’t judge the version of me who believed those answers.
She wasn’t weak.
She wasn’t foolish.
She was simply loving.
And love has a way of hoping for the best in people.
Because when you finally hit the wall, you don’t just mourn what you lost.
You mourn what you believed.
You mourn who you thought people were.
You mourn the future you had already begun living inside your own heart.
But somewhere in all of that pain, the helpers begin appearing too.
The quiet people.
The safe people.
The ones who don’t try to fix your grief but simply sit beside it.
Mr. Rogers used to say, “Look for the helpers.”
I think that’s one of the holiest things anyone has ever taught us.
And looking back now, I realize healing didn’t begin when the pain disappeared.
It began when I finally stopped resisting the realignment that had already begun.
As lonely as it felt.
As confusing as it felt.
As unfair as it felt.
I obeyed it anyway.
And slowly—very slowly—life began opening again.
Looking back now, I don’t think the brick wall was there to destroy me.
I think it stopped me from spending the rest of my life running toward a future that was never mine.
