Grief Doesn’t End — And That’s Not a Problem
Why I wrote Come As You Are: Five Years Later, and why I keep writing about grief.
A few weeks ago, I was a guest on a podcast. I shared some very personal, sometimes messy details about my life — my inner world, my struggles, the grief I’ve carried, and what it’s been like to fall in love again after losing my husband.
Afterward, a friend reached out. She told me how much she admired the vulnerability it must have taken to speak so openly. I appreciated it. But I also felt a strange urge to push back.
Because what I said on that podcast, and what I’ve written in my newest book, Come As You Are: Five Years Later, doesn’t feel like bravery to me.
It feels like honesty.
Yes, this book is raw. I talk about grief. About dating again. About falling in love — and how terrifying that was. I talk about the fear of losing again. I talk about feeling broken, and finding new kinds of wholeness that didn’t require me to be “healed.”
It wasn’t easy to write, but it felt important. Not because I think I’m special. Not because I have some grand wisdom the world needs to hear. Quite the opposite, actually.
I wrote it because I think this is normal. This is what it’s like to grieve someone you loved with your whole heart. This is what it’s like to love again when you know what love can cost. This is what it’s like to try — imperfectly — to stay open.
And yes — grief comes back. Not as a failure, but as part of love’s ongoing echo.
“This is the story of grief returning through love.
It’s about the way joy and grief live side by side — how they don’t cancel each other out, how they’re part of the same terrain.”
— Come As You Are: Five Years Later
Our culture often treats grief like a problem to solve. Like something that you’re supposed to get over. Something that has a timeline. Something that is supposed to be medicated. But that is not the truth.
I used to see it that way. Not anymore.
“Falling in love again didn’t erase my grief for Brian.
It just rearranged it.
Integrated it into something bigger, more complex, and more alive.”
— Come As You Are: Five Years Later
I wrote this book because I want people to know that whatever they’re feeling — the pain, the longing, the confusion, the joy that catches them off guard — it’s all part of the story. It’s not evidence that something’s wrong with you. It’s just the weather. Not the weather forecast.
“Grief didn’t mean I had failed.
It meant I had loved.”
— Come As You Are: Five Years Later
I hope you’ll read the book. Not to be entertained. Not to be impressed. I hope you read it because something in you wants to feel less alone.
And if you’re grieving — whether it’s been five months or five years or five decades — I hope it helps you find a little peace.
Because you’re not broken.
You’re just alive.
And being alive means loving.
And loving means loss.
Every time.
But it’s still worth it.
Every time.
