An Unapologetic Journey of Grief to Find Healing and Hope
Grief is an odd thing. It’s messy, unpredictable, and often feels uncomfortable to others. When we experience loss, we feel the absence in ways that can’t be fully expressed or understood by the world around us. The reality of grief is that it doesn’t follow a neat, tidy path. It ebbs and flows, and its timeline is not one that can be rushed as we heal.
Yet, despite this, we are often expected to put on a brave face and carry on as if everything is okay. We may even feel pressured by the world to appear strong, “adjusted,” or quick to heal.
But what if we stopped pretending that we were “okay” or that we had it all together after loss? What if we didn’t feel the need to force ourselves into a mold of someone who has already moved past pain? What if we gave ourselves—and others—permission to feel all that grief asks of us, no matter how long it takes?
Giving Grief Room to Breathe
When you’re grieving, or if someone you love is grieving, it’s okay, and even necessary, to feel the full weight of those emotions. The rush to “move on” or to “be strong” may come from a place of care or concern, but it’s not always helpful. Dismissing pain or encouraging someone to bypass their grief only denies them the opportunity to truly heal.
Grief isn’t something that should be hurried through for the sake of making others feel comfortable. In fact, it’s in sitting with the pain, experiencing it, and allowing ourselves to truly feel, that healing begins.
I’ve felt this tension myself. The stronger I appear, the more “adjusted” I seem, the easier it is for the people around me to relax, as if “my healing” was proof that everything was okay. But here’s the truth: grief is not about making others comfortable. It’s not about hiding the truth of how deeply we are hurting just to protect others from the discomfort of witnessing our vulnerability. We can’t truly heal by pretending the pain isn’t there.
Finding Healing and Grace in Unexpected Places
Healing comes when we honor the full spectrum of grief—when we give ourselves permission to be broken, to feel deeply, and to let others see our wounds. In doing so, we find the courage to heal on our own terms, unashamed and unapologetic.
Healing comes when we honor the full spectrum of grief—when we give ourselves permission to be broken, to feel deeply, and to let others see our wounds.
Heather Lebano
In the midst of my grief—yes, I am still grieving—grace often comes in unexpected ways. There are moments when I feel completely overwhelmed—when the weight of Jon’s illness, his passing, and the life-altering shift in our family felt/feels—is too much to bear. But in those moments, I find grace in the smallest, simplest things.
Grace looks like giving myself permission to feel deeply, even when it’s inconvenient or uncomfortable for others. It’s in the moments when I allow myself to sit with the ache and trust that it’s okay not to be okay. Sometimes, grace is as simple as stepping outside for a breath of fresh air or lighting a candle in the quiet hours of the night to remind myself that God’s presence is near.
Grace also comes through the love and support of others. A text from a friend who simply says, “I’m thinking of you today,” or the way my kids can bring joy into the hardest moments—it’s in these little things that I find strength to keep going.
Grace is not a solution; it’s a companion on this journey, gently reminding me that I don’t have to carry it all on my own.
Embracing the Darkness to Find Light
Grief, by its very nature, is uncomfortable. It’s a journey into the unknown, a place of deep hurt and sorrow, but also a place of profound transformation. In a world that often rushes us to heal, it’s easy to forget that healing doesn’t mean erasing the pain. Healing means learning how to live with it, to navigate the darkness, and to allow it to shape us into something more resilient, more compassionate, and ultimately more whole. Even if that means we are becoming someone different than who we were before the loss.
Recently, I was listening to an interview with Will Reeve (please take time to listen to his interview) on his story of grief, and his words struck me deeply. He experienced the profound loss of both parents by the young age of 13, and reflected on this dynamic when he said, “The stronger and happier I seemed, the better I was received by the world around me… it makes them comfortable and safe.” His words reveal a painful truth: in the wake of loss, society often expects us to prioritize THEIR comfort over our pain. Where is the grace for the mourner?
Can you imagine being a child who lived most of his young life witnessing his father’s resilience from a wheelchair and then, as a young teen, losing both parents in quick succession and not being able to feel the pain of such loss?
The weight of that grief is unfathomable, and yet Will’s reflection highlights the added burden many grieving people carry—the pressure to appear “strong” so others can feel at ease.
Grief is not comfortable. It wasn’t meant to be—death was never part of the plan. It challenges us, reshapes us, and demands to be felt. Yet the world often doesn’t allow for that messy, vulnerable process, pushing us to look “okay” even when we’re far from it.
Will’s story serves as a powerful reminder that true healing comes not from masking our pain but from having the space and grace to fully experience it.
In his interview, Will also shared the wisdom he’s gained through his own experience of catastrophic loss, particularly the importance of pushing through the pain: “You need to push on pain points…You gotta go to the dark places in your own way in order to bring light to those places….It will be destructive if you ignore it. It will be permanent…You can heal there and live a full life with the wound there.”
Wow. Sit with those words for a moment.
“You need to go to the dark places in YOUR OWN WAY in order to bring light to those places.”-Will Reeve
These words beautifully and painfully capture the essence—the dichotomy—of what grief requires: the willingness to enter those dark places, to feel the full weight of the loss, and to emerge from them, scarred but stronger. Stronger comes from facing it, not denying it. It’s not about ignoring the pain or hoping it will go away. It’s about embracing it, facing it, and learning how to carry the wound with us in a way that allows us to heal and live even while it remains. It keeps us connected to the one we lost.
Grieving Unapologetically
Grief is a reminder that love doesn’t end with death; it simply transforms. We carry the love of those we’ve lost within us, and through that love, we learn to heal.
It’s important to recognize that grief isn’t linear. It doesn’t have a clear beginning and end. There will be days when it feels fresh, as if the wound has just opened. There will be other days when we carry the weight of it with more ease, but the journey of healing is never one-size-fits-all. Each of us must find our own way through the storm.
I wonder what the world would look like if we embraced the reality of grief more fully. What if we gave each other (and ourselves) permission to feel the pain without judgment, to express sorrow without shame, or to honor the depth of our losses without needing to rush through them! For example, take it from me (and other widows I know) getting to the first year isn’t a milestone of completion. Being half way through the second year has proven to be far more grief intense than I ever could have expected.
Grief is not a problem to be fixed or a stage to be passed through. It’s a process to be experienced, not something to endure silently or quietly in the shadows.
Grief is not a problem to be fixed or a stage to be passed through. It’s a process to be experienced, not something to endure silently or quietly in the shadows.
heather lebano
If we allow ourselves the grace to feel our grief, to fully experience its messiness, we might find that, in doing so, we give others permission to do the same. The world doesn’t need us to be “adjusted” in the face of loss.
It needs us to be real, to be human, to be honest about our pain. And in that honesty, there is freedom.
There is healing.
There is room for love and loss to coexist, as we learn to carry both in ways that make us whole.
Hidden Losses in Grief
In talking with a widow friend this week, I was reminded of how grief often stretches beyond the emotional pain we feel. For many, it is a tangible, life-altering shift that touches every part of our existence, including the dreams and memories we once took for granted. I want to hold space for her and for others whose lives have been completely altered by a diagnosis, a loss, or the unplanned changes that come with illness and then death. These are the parts of grief that often go unnoticed or misunderstood—how illness and loss don’t just take away a person but reshape the very fabric of life itself.
For instance, three years of my own life were consumed by Jon’s diagnosis, surgeries, treatments, and stroke recovery and caregiving. Then, of course, he passed away. It was a time when everything we thought we knew about normal life came to a halt, and our focus was solely on surviving, keeping Jon alive, and navigating the overwhelming weight of uncertainty. My kids didn’t get to experience a “normal” childhood or young adulthood during those years. They couldn’t take part in the simple, joyful things others did because we were all living in a constant state of flux, often holding our breath, trying to keep our world together, holding onto hope while knowing the truth of our story. We are very much processing this reality now. My widow friend was sharing the same loss and pain about her son’s lost childhood.
We even experience grief in that.
These are the hidden losses, the ones not often talked about in the midst of grief, but they are just as real, just as painful. They stay with us.
This is part of the complexity of grief that others may not see or understand—how the impact of a diagnosis or a loss extends beyond just the loss of a person. It steals the future we imagined, the moments we took for granted, and the dreams we had for our family. And yet, even in the midst of it, we must allow ourselves the grace to grieve unapologetically. Because grief is a journey we must walk through, not around, and there is no timeline for healing.
A Final Thought
Grief is a unique and deeply personal journey, one that cannot be rushed or simplified. It’s a process that requires us to sit with the pain, to allow it to unfold at its own pace, without rushing or forcing it to make us feel ‘better”. And while it’s often tempting to put on a brave face for the world, true healing requires us to be unapologetic in our grief.
We can’t rush the seasons of pain and sorrow that come with losing someone we love. We don’t need to apologize for how grief manifests—whether it’s in tears, quiet moments of reflection, or even in anger, or stepping away from who we used to be—we aren’t the same person since that loss. It’s all part of the process.
And it’s okay to let others see us as we are in these moments, vulnerable and human. We deserve the space to be authentically ourselves, without the expectation that we will “move on” or “get over it” in a certain amount of time. It is not our responsibility to make others comfortable in our pain, but tt does help us grievers if our loved ones were willing to be uncomfortable in our pain.
A Note of Hope
Grief is a journey I’m still walking, and I know I always will be in some fashion. It’s not a road with an end—it’s a sacred path that shapes me as I go. But even in the darkest moments, I’ve seen glimmers of light. I’ve learned that God’s grace doesn’t always come in the ways we expect, but it is always there, faithful and steady.
To anyone navigating grief: know that you don’t have to have all the answers, and you don’t have to have it all together.
Give yourself permission to grieve unapologetically, to feel deeply, and to let your wounds breathe. Healing doesn’t mean the pain disappears—it means learning to live with it, and to carry it with hope.
I hold tightly to the promise that even when the road feels dark, God’s light is still present. He walks with us, even when we can’t see the way ahead. And in time, we learn to carry both the love and the loss in a way that allows us to keep moving forward, knowing we are not alone.
Give yourself permission to grieve unapologetically, to feel deeply, and to let your wounds breathe. Healing doesn’t mean the pain disappears—it means learning to live with it, and to carry it with hope.
Heather Lebano
Author’s Note:
I’m writing this reflection from a place deeply rooted in faith and the grace of God. His strength has carried me through my own journey of loss, and I can’t imagine surviving grief without that foundation. But I also want to acknowledge the raw, human side of grief—the deep pain and sorrow we all feel. Too often, we’re encouraged to “push past” those feelings with well-meaning but dismissive spiritual responses, or we fall into the habit of bypassing our own grief in the name of faith.
It is worth remembering even Jesus, who is our ultimate source of hope, didn’t shy away from grief. He wept for those He loved. (John 11;35) He entered into our human pain and showed us that it’s okay to feel and express our sorrow.
So while my faith is what sustains me, this reflection is a space to honor the reality of grief—the heartbreak and the tears—while trusting that God’s grace is still present in every moment, even in the deepest anguish.
One More Note:
I don’t think I could have survived the past 18 months without my kids, my faith, the spiritual fathers and mothers, priests and religious in my life, the kindness of strangers and newly formed friends, those loved ones who have consistently checked in on me, never left me and supported me during THE hardest years, months and days of my life and continue to do that now unafraid to be there in the pain and listen at a moments notice, when I needed an ear or a hug and a meal or a soft place to land.
Thank you for your patience with me and the grace and support you have shown me. Your deeds and love do not go unnoticed by me, by my kids and by God.
This journey is long. It requires patience, compassion, and the willingness to walk through the darkness, knowing that light will eventually return.
Heather Lebano
This short reflection below was shared on Instagram and my Facebook Writer Page about this blog post. It felt right to give it a spot here for those not on social media. Sharing hard things is not always easy, but they do need a voice.
When I finished an blog post about grief, an unwelcome voice whispered, “It’s too much, too heavy for your readers to bear.”
I almost listened. But then I laughed through tears because IF it feels too much to read, imagine living it.
That’s what widows/ers and any griever do every single day. We live it.
The same voice that tells me to hold back is the one I speak about in the post: the voice that insists, “You’re strong; you’ve adjusted; it’s time to stop talking about grief.”
But grief isn’t something you can turn off. It doesn’t come with a switch. You can mask it or tuck it away, but as I’ve shared, that’s not a healthy way to live.
Grief is a part of me, though I wish it weren’t. It has shaped my days—not just through the loss of my husband but also the loss of my parents in the past few years, our dog this summer, and countless secondary losses that follow when you lose someone you love. Those losses are compounded by the quiet absence of those who couldn’t stay close as I worked through the messiness of grief.
Grief isn’t just the tears. It’s so much more. It’s the ache beneath your skin, the pain in your bones, the sleepless nights, the juggling many things. It’s knowing that dreams for a future you longed for have faded. It’s watching my daughter dance in her college showcase, smiling with pride, while my heart silently screamed that her dad wasn’t there to see it. It’s celebrating moments of beauty while carrying the weight of what’s lost.
Grief lives alongside us. It shows up unannounced and stays as long as it pleases. Yet, in the midst of it all, I search for hope and joy every single day.
I’m not stuck in grief; I’m living with it. That’s the dichotomy: we want to live fully, to find joy and peace, even as grief remains.
I write and share because grief needs a voice.
So, while that small voice tried to silence me, I need to share the hard truths about An Unapologetic Journey with Grief because even if it’s heavy, there’s always hope in the end.
