Grief and Healing: The Gentle Holding of What’s Falling Apart

Sometimes grief and healing aren't about fixing — it’s about learning to stay soft while things shift. Grief unravels us in ways we can’t always see, and dreams often show us the places our bodies are already trying to hold. Because sometimes healing isn’t about putting the pieces back together — it’s about learning to hold them with love while they shift. It’s about staying with the unraveling, trusting that even in the falling apart, there’s wisdom.

There’s wholeness. There’s you, showing up in the mess — not waiting to be fully formed to be fully human.

Grief has a way of surfacing through the body and dreams—places where words don’t always reach. This isn’t dysfunction — it’s your nervous system, your psyche, finding its own way to integrate.

And that, too, is healing. What follows is a personal story — a lived experience of grief, healing, and the beauty of what remains ↓

Holding what once bloomed. Honoring what remains.

These days, grief and healing have been showing up in strange ways. Not always as a sob. Not always as silence. Sometimes… it looks like a dream where part of my tooth fell out. And then my gums were peeling. I was at the dentist, asking for something — anything — to glue it all back together. She said she had the agent in the back. I grabbed my phone and ran after her. I woke up before anything could be fixed.

And somehow, that felt exactly right.

Because lately, I’ve been unraveling in quiet ways. My grandmother died. I wrote a post about grief with a picture of me smiling — because grief can look like that too. I cried in front of other women in a healing circle.

I let go of the guilt I’d been carrying for surviving —

for being able to walk, talk, and recall memories. For not spending more time with her when she no longer knew who I was. Even though my family visited her weekly —

even when she couldn’t recognize them either.

For the years she lived with Alzheimer’s.

For the years we all lost during the pandemic. And there’s also the pain of knowing they were separated for so long.

Quarantine kept them apart, and as her condition worsened, the window to reunite quietly closed.

My grandfather passed before they ever had the chance. We couldn’t keep the home he built with his own two hands — the one they shared for decades. The one that nurtured their marriage. That helped raise their children. The one my parents called home when I was born. That brought our family together every holiday. Every Sunday after church. Every garage sale weekend.

We had no choice but to place them in a care home — for their safety — and we couldn’t afford to keep the house.

Selling it was the only way to cover the cost of their care.

Now, there’s an apartment complex standing on the land my grandfather once owned — land he proudly told me was the best investment anyone could make.

And a big part of me wishes that were true for me too. Every time I drive by, I can still see and feel my grandparents’ home — the love it held etched into memory, even if the walls are gone. Even if it's not physically there.

They say until death do us part — but I can’t help but feel that death was the thing that finally brought them back together. And somehow, that thought brings me peace. It softens the grief. It lets me breathe. As I smile. As I ache.

My survivor's guilt told me a story: that if I didn’t feel the pain constantly, I didn’t care. That to love her meant to ache.

But that’s not the whole truth. Love doesn’t always look like grief. And healing doesn’t mean forgetting.

And this morning, I flossed my teeth — something I skipped the night before. A small act of care. Of choosing presence. Of choosing life.

And there’s something symbolic about that. About caring for your voice. About tending to your root. About finding the pieces of yourself that feel like they’re falling apart and just… staying with them. Not trying to force them back into place.

Grief peels us open — and sometimes it feels like we’re being ripped wide open. It softens what we’ve kept strong. It reveals what’s been buried. It reminds us we’re human.

And maybe the point isn’t to be “okay.” Maybe the point is to be present. To stay in the middle of the mess without making yourself wrong for it. This is what grief and healing can look like — raw, unfinished, yet deeply human.

Not always tidy. Not always visible.

But real. And worthy.

This isn’t a post with a resolution. It’s a moment of honesty. A little snapshot of what it means to fall apart gently. To be held by your own tenderness. To let healing take the time it needs.

This is grief. This is healing. This is wholeness in motion. And even though I can’t sing with her anymore — like I used to, before her illness —

I’m learning to carry the music in a different way now.

And I’ll keep singing to her —

because I know she’s still with me in the room.