Where to Find the Courage to Carry On After Losing a Loved One

10 min readDec 13, 2020

Photo courtesy of Tracy Luk (Author)

The Bad News

There is no turning back time, and nothing you can say or do will ever bring them back.

The Good News

I didn’t expect to do it for another twenty-odd years, but composing a eulogy for the first time was one of the most cathartic experiences. It’s no surprise I feel compelled to write when I am deep in reflective thought, or when my feelings are all over the place. I’ve heard whenever you feel emotional, pick up a pen and paper — just start writing.

Grief. How do I describe it? It’s one of those things you cannot begin to understand until it happens to you. Like a reality check that brings forth what we already know but can’t grasp until we are face to face with it, and that is the impermanence of human existence. You will notice that some people sympathize, some offer condolences, and others nothing at all — not even the people you most expect it from.

The odd thing about grief is that it isn’t always there. You’re fine one moment, but the next thought could trigger a memory, which then allows it to seep into your chest and anchor itself. Your heart feels like a brick dragging along with the weight of sorrow, and it sits there momentarily until something like a bite of chocolate ice cream lifts your mood, or contagious laughter turns your frown upside down. A hit of dopamine is a pleasant distraction.

Grief takes on many forms

It is in the way I see my dog daily, alive but not living. It is when looking into the eyes of a loved one who isn’t entirely there, sitting warmly beside you but forever gone. It surfaces when thinking of wishes robbed from me and others, the shattering of hopes and dreams.

When my elder brother gave me that dreadful call to deliver the news of our father’s sudden passing, the devastation transferred like waves through the phone that I clutched through trembles. I could feel the life force drain from me, like half of my lineage had withered away. His voice broke under heavy tears and enveloped me in the same confusion,

It isn’t fair, Tracy. I needed more time with him. I had so much planned for after his retirement. I don’t even get the chance to repay him.

Losing him was equivalent to losing both parents for us.

To care for those who once cared for us is one of the highest honors.

The thought itself of being denied that hurts.

The upside is, there isn’t anything we cannot heal from. Sit through the pain with an open heart. Your heart can break and swell with love and gratitude at the very same time. While never welcome to begin with, going through hardship adds immense contrast to life. The good gets better — unbelievably so. I’d say it is all worth it in the end, for it too irrevocably betters you as a person. That is an achievement.

I catch myself pondering what my dad would have said to my brothers and me, had he known he wouldn’t have much time left in this world. What words would he have left behind? I will never know, and I can no longer hear it directly from him.

When my life derailed in the weeks following my dad’s passing, I was watching Netflix more than usual to take my mind off things. I happened to come across a Korean movie, titled “Will You Be There,” and there was a pivotal scene where a guy was consoling his friend. He had lost his father to lung cancer, who said to him before passing,

I do not need to be there for every important moment in your life. As long as you keep me in your heart during each of those moments, then I’d have no regrets.

I paused the movie to soak this in. The subtitles glowed on the screen, and like a key that unlocked a hidden chamber to my heart, I wept release into the darkness of my room. I imagined my dad saying the same thing — no regrets. Perhaps he spoke to me through the words of this film character. I’ll take it as synchronicity, or at least attach an answer to my endless what-if question.

People never truly leave our lives. They exist in our minds and our hearts: When the melody to a song rings a nostalgic bell, and you flow back to a shared moment. How you eat a dish peculiarly because it reminds you of them. Within inside jokes or familiar words peppered throughout your conversation. The way you laugh out just-a-little-too-loud, and you know exactly who you got that from. When you remember how they always blessed sneezes after you let one out. From their perspectives on life that helped broaden your own. It shows in our actions and beliefs, in the little idiosyncrasies of theirs, we unconsciously adopted. Their very essence lives on — through us.

Ten, twenty, thirty years down the road, the lapse of time would never bury your memories of someone, had the person ever genuinely meant something to you in the first place.

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.
― Winnie The Pooh

When it comes time for you to say goodbye, and at the back of your mind, you are hopefully wishing, please remember me. What this means is, I hope our exchange, our relationship, and our experiences were worthwhile and that our feelings were mutual. I hope I made enough of a difference in your life for you to always remember me by.

When someone leaves our lives, they don’t just take away their presence. They take away pieces of us and promises for the future together. But not all is lost. What is left in place of that loss is far more than fond memories: There comes renewed strength, patience, compassion, and grace. Added wisdom. The chance to right previous wrongs. An even more profound appreciation for everything going beautifully well in your life and the gift of the present — one that can be taken away at any moment.

Once someone lights a fire in us, it never goes out. It is always somewhere burning in the background, and each passing remembrance keeps this unconditional love aflame. Their being helped shape who you are as a person. But sometimes we are too busy going down our path in life, that we overlook how they were with us every step of the way. There is nothing like someone’s absence to bring to light the significance of their existence, and how they stood out from the rest.

Remembrance

This is the greatest testament of love that stands the test of time.

It must be glaringly obvious, but it makes all-encompassing sense to me now why “in loving memory of’’ is etched on tombstones. Sadness lingers when we miss someone’s physical presence, but we can let go of that attachment and have an unbreakable bond intact.

Are they gone if you keep them alive in your thoughts and your memories keep you connected? Thinking of them, not as a distant memory, but holding them near and dear. The past is the past. But the past matters. That is how we honor the loss of loved ones. The best way to give back, to show you care — always have and always will — is simply to remember them.

We stay intertwined through invisible threads in an eternal web of love even if some people are gone before their time. Memories give you the courage to carry on without them.

Where to Find the Courage to Carry On After Losing a Loved One

The Bad News

The Good News

Grief takes on many forms

Remembrance

Written by Kobi Kabir Suman