Words by Stephen Aycock | Image by Ryan McGill
Through many years of dealing with loss and grief, and through the countless individuals who have shared their experiences with me, I have come to understand several things. Today, I want to share just one: Stop trying to find your way back to the person you used to be.
After the loss of someone very special, we often spend months, sometimes years, struggling to “find ourselves” again. That inability to go back only deepens the fear that something is permanently broken inside us.
Grief is a natural reaction, yet misconceptions and misunderstandings often make it heavier and more painful—at times threatening our very sanity. We may not relate to our living children the way we once did. Relationships with our spouse or partner often become strained, and, depending on which statistics you read, divorce is not uncommon. Even small problems feel overwhelming. Hobbled by our inability to cope, we no longer feel like ourselves. We have not only lost a child or someone else deeply loved, but it can feel as though we are losing everything and everyone else, too. What once felt stable and unshakable now seems to crumble before our eyes. The “new self” that emerges can leave us introverted, angry, lonely, or pessimistic. Sometimes it even pulls us away from God, all because we can’t seem to recover the person we once were.
The truth is: you cannot find your way back at all. When your loved one died, your life shifted onto a different path. Before, when your family was intact, you saw your life’s road stretching forward. With challenges, yes, but overall, you had a sense of direction and control. Then loss came, and every routine that gave your life structure was torn away. Even your timeline changed. Where once you anticipated graduations, marriages, grandchildren, vacations, and a future full of promise, now there is a vast, unfillable space. The road has changed and so has the person walking it.
Instead of trying to reclaim who you were, allow yourself to accept who you are becoming. Pain and suffering have altered the way you see the world. That will not change. But it does not have to be all bad. You may now be more cautious, more intentional. You see time as a precious commodity, not something to waste. Priorities shift. Things once at the bottom of the list move to the top. Patience with triviality fades. Before your loss, you knew in theory that children could die, but you believed it happened to other people—not you. In an instant, innocence was gone. Such a profound change to our very sense of self inevitably reshapes how we see both ourselves and the world around us.
But do not allow yourself to find only desperation. God molded us from clay and breathed life into our lungs; we alone were made this way. In your grief, let Him mold you still. Ask Him to help you adjust to the person you have become. Ask Him to give you strength and purpose when you cannot see either.
This is not the road we would have chosen, but it is the road before us. The one we must inch forward on every day. Let God be your crutch in these hard times. We limp only when we try to walk it alone. With God’s strength within us, we take our first true steps. WL
