The other day, while mindlessly scrolling through social media after a particularly long day, I ran across a meme that struck me and reminded me of things I’ve written about here before, and things I’d added to Grief Recovery for Adults: Be the things you loved most about the people who are gone.
When I look back at the losses I’ve experienced, it’s easy to gloss over the not-so-good qualities. We’re told, of course, that we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but doesn’t that set the wrong appearance?
One of the pillars of the PURPOSE framework is to Perceive Reality—face things as they are, not as we wish them to be. Our loved ones were human, perfectly flawed humans. Yet, we still loved them. There was something about them that we loved, and that’s what we try to honor. It’s not about erasing the bad things but lifting up the good things and emulating those qualities in ourselves.
My second husband made me laugh; he was a doting father to our children; he gave of himself to the community; he was outgoing and friendly; he had a zest for life.
These are all qualities that made me love him. To honor his memory, I try to be those things because he can’t be anymore. Sometimes, I succeed, and sometimes, I fall flat on my face. But I keep trying.
When I think about those things that made me fall in love with who he was, I realize that some of those characteristics were actually missing in me. Even though my life is literally an open book, that I write something every day, and that I’m getting into the public eye as an actor, I am actually an introvert. I’ve also been working from home for the last 10 1/2 years.
There’s rarely a need for me to leave the house; I can even get groceries delivered now. However, I recognized that being a hermit was not good for me, and I forced myself to do things he would have done: I tried to socialize more in an attempt to be more outgoing; I ran for and was elected to a seat on the school committee. I’ve volunteered in the community for multiple organizations and am doing my level best to maintain a zest for life. That’s one reason I started this Life After Losses journey.
Not only am I demonstrating to others that loss needn’t define who they are, but I’m also demonstrating it to myself. After my first loss, I know all too well that if I allowed myself to do so, I’d wind up in some dark pit feeling sorry for myself. I didn’t like what that did to me nearly 30 years ago—I wasn’t going back there.
This had to be a conscious choice to prevent that slide, and this is where the power of conscious choice comes into play, particularly when we decide to embody the qualities we loved most in those we’ve lost.
I know that making this choice isn’t always easy. It requires us to look beyond our pain at something “beyond” what we know and feel. We have to search our memories in a new way and analyze them for a specific purpose. When I chose to be more outgoing, volunteer in my community, and maintain a zest for life, I was making a conscious decision to honor my late husband’s memory through action rather than just remembrance.
This choice to “be the things you loved most about the people who are gone” is a powerful tool in the grief recovery process because it gives us a sense of purpose and direction when we might otherwise feel lost and rudderless. We can keep our loved one’s spirit alive in our world.
Moreover, this conscious choice helps us avoid the pitfall of passive grief. Instead of merely longing for what we’ve lost, we actively work to bring those positive qualities we miss into the world, saying, “Your impact will live on through me.”
To be clear: this isn’t about trying to become someone else or losing our own identity in the process. It’s about consciously choosing to grow, to incorporate new positive traits into our own unique personalities. It’s about evolution, not replacement. For me, it was about learning to step out of my comfort zone and live the life they couldn’t.
I learned to look through this lens: I often ask myself, “What would they do in this situation?” or “How can I honor their memory today?” These questions help guide my actions and help me make choices that align with the qualities I admired while ignoring the ones I didn’t.
Ultimately, I feel the conscious choice to embody the best qualities of those we’ve lost is a powerful act of love, not just for them, but for me, too. It’s a choice that says, “Your life mattered so much that I want to carry forward the best parts of you.” It’s a choice that can help transform our grief from a burden into a catalyst for personal growth and positive change.
I shared many strategies in Grief Recovery for Adults, and one of the most powerful things we have is the ability to make a choice. You have the power to choose. We can choose not just to remember but also to become living tributes to those we’ve lost. In doing so, I believe we honor their memory and create a richer, more meaningful life for ourselves and those around us.
Side note: If you find the weekly entries helpful, consider subscribing to the social media channels. Each weekday, I share a video on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, usually less than a few minutes long, on some topic. Sometimes, it’s grief-related; sometimes, it’s random thoughts. It’s my way of trying to tap us along on this journey in life
