“I think I have had the wrong destination in mind.” These words have stayed with me for many years. They were spoken by a mom who trusted me with her story of profound loss, nine years after the death of one of her two sons. It was her one (and only) counseling session with me. She started the session by explaining that she had been trying for nine years to get her life back to the way it was before her son died to no avail and decided to try counseling to see if that might help to restore her.
For the next 50 minutes, I listened as she shared about her son’s death, his life, and her life with him. She talked about what life was like before he died and what life had been like over the past nine years since his death. There is something sacred about holding space for a person’s story. And there is a power that people gain when they can tell that story without interruption while being truly heard.
As we came to the end of our time together, she sat back, paused, and reflected. Then she said, “You know, hearing myself talk over the past hour, I think I have had the wrong destination in mind. I have been trying to get my life back to the way it was before my son died, but I don’t think that is possible. I would give anything to have my son back. But my life is different now. I am different. I think I need to figure out how I live my life now that he has died – how to carry my grief, honor his memory, and live my life all at the same time.” Though we scheduled a follow up session, she contacted me a week later to cancel, sharing that this epiphany was what she needed and had made all the difference.
Many of us have had moments like this in our lives, an “ah ha” moment of clarity, when we realize something about ourselves or life that had previously escaped us. I was a bystander who was able to experience that moment with her. In the days and weeks after that session, a concept began to percolate in my mind. Namely, that grief is a transformational experience. Many of our constructs of healing focus on restoration or getting back to the way things were. Friends and family members often say things like, “I miss the old you.” What if, instead, we said, “let me introduce you to the new me.”
Consider, for a moment, how your grief has changed you, the way you think about life, what you prioritize, your values, beliefs, relationships, and so many other things. Learning to live again after profound loss is not somewhere behind us, it is in relationship to where we are now, where we are going, and how we have been transformed by our grief. Grief is not a choice; it is a transformative experience we are living. The choice is not whether we will be transformed, the choice is how much we want to be a part of shaping that transformation. Profound loss shakes us to our core and one hard fought, messy, painful step at a time, we make the most intense, deep-set, impossible choices about how, who, and what our lives will look like now.
The Compassionate Friends (TCF) exists to hold this type of space for bereaved parents, grandparents, and siblings living with profound loss. Thank you for trusting us with your story. Thank you to all who found solace in this space, then took up the mantle to turn around and hold this space for those coming behind you. There is power in listening and being heard. Wherever you might be in your grief today, keep reaching out, keep moving, and keep breathing. Take our hand, share your story with us, scream, cry, laugh, be angry, and whatever else you might need. Be an active participant in your own transformation. Share about your personal “ah ha” moments and how you have been transformed. Take someone else’s hand and hold their story with love and care. We are The Compassionate Friends, we do not walk alone.
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Thank you for this very enlightening and powerful piece. I agree that the challenge (not “choice” for some of us) is to commit to shaping that transformation and finding forgiveness. I carry a weight of mountainous entangled regrets, guilt, despair, coulda/woulda/shouldas, anger, helplessness, and many other heavy burdens that can’t be eliminated from my innards. They’ve got to be zapped by an ephemeral power of enlightened awareness that I chase illusively and only intermittently. I know this heavy weight has become a form of self-flagellation for allowing my son to pass when I was his lifeline and I failed.
You are not alone in your journey..it may not comfort you always but do know there are many of us who share your grief…and I am so very sorry.
Hi Mary, I lost my daughter on August 25th, 2025. It is April 23rd, 2026. I am struggling so much. I want help from Compassionate Friends. I hope I hear back from you.
Mary, please reach out through email nationaloffice@compassionatefriends.org or by calling 877.969.0010. We would like to connect you with a local chapter and our online support.
Thank you for your reply, Dee. Thank you for that important distinction, “challenge” not “choice.” I like that better. Mary, thank you for your supportive words as well. – Andy McNiel
Thank you for sharing your insight about grief being a transformative experience. I am 3 years and 4 months into my experience of living with grief. I had an epiphany early on that was the result of a dream I had where my son raised a glass to me and said, “Drink to life, Mom.” After losing him unexpectedly to a genetic disease we didn’t know he had until it suddenly killed him, I felt completely broken and could not imagine ever experiencing joy again. After that dream I decided that I didn’t want his legacy in my life to be that his death destroyed me. I wanted to let his legacy be the love that we shared and the joy that he brought into my life while he was here. With the help of a great grief counselor, I learned that grief and joy can coexist so that I can be whole again with a different kind of wholeness. I am able to “Drink to life” by allowing myself to live in whatever experience I am having – experiences of joy as well as pain and sadness. I recognize that I am not broken, but changed, and one of the ways I am living with my grief is by supporting others who are grieving.
Reading this made me think about how grief isn’t something that “goes away,” but something that reshapes who I am and how I see the world. I really connected with the idea that grief can be transformative—not just in terms of pain, but in how it can deepen compassion, awareness, and even the way I relate to life moving forward.
It’s a reminder for me that healing isn’t about returning to who I was before, but learning how to live as someone who has been changed by love and loss.