Grief, Grace & New Beginnings

You hear it so often after someone passes. People say moments, memories, milestones and even ordinary days feel bittersweet. But what does bittersweet actually mean? And have you ever really sat still long enough to ask yourself what it means to you?

In January after losing Jason, I started attending GriefShare at a local church. If I am being completely honest, the first night I walked in I felt completely alone. I looked around the room and saw faces much older than mine. I remember feeling angry. I remember thinking how could they possibly feel this kind of pain when they had fifty or sixty years with their person and I did not even get eight.

But as the weeks passed and I listened more than I spoke, something inside of me began to shift. My heart was still broken because eight years was not enough, but I began to see another side of grief. Some of the people sitting across from me were learning how to live again after fifty years with their best friend. I am not here to say which loss is harder because grief does not work that way. What I came to understand is that loss is loss. And no matter how long you had with your person, waking up without them is its own kind of heartbreak.

One evening in GriefShare we talked about bittersweet. We were asked what it meant to us and what moments in our lives felt that way. At that point I honestly could not think of a single moment I had truly acknowledged as bittersweet. I sat quietly and thought about it long after the meeting ended. And then it hit me. Bittersweet is something bitter that I choose to make sweet. It is standing in a painful moment and deciding I will not stay in the bitterness. It is choosing to hold on to what is sacred and tender instead of what is broken.

The January after losing Jason I made a career change. I accepted a position doing benefits at our local school district, the same district where Jason drove a school bus. I was taking the position of the one person who held my hand and walked me through every step of what needed to be done after losing my best friend. Ms. Freda understood in a way I never wanted anyone to understand. She became someone I leaned on more than she will probably ever know.

I remember sitting in my interview for the position she once held. The director asked me why I wanted the job. I tried so hard to keep my composure as I answered. I said, because I want to be Freda. I want to do for others what Freda did for me. When you are trying to survive grief and still manage life, the last thing you need is another obstacle. Freda made one of the hardest seasons of my life just a little bit softer. She was truly a Godsend in helping close everything connected to Jason within the district.

About a month after I started my new position, I experienced my first death in the district. I remember dreading it. I tried my hardest to pray for the family because the pain was still so fresh for me. But I also knew I had a job to do and shoes I was trying my best to fill.

I sat down at my desk and began the process. Freda came in to guide me through it step by step. And then came the moment that stopped me in my tracks. The paperwork she pulled for reference was Jason’s. It was the last death she had processed. Neither of us knew then that I would one day be sitting in her chair processing the next one.

I remember the wave of anger that rushed over me. I was staring at paperwork with my husband’s name on it. The triggers I have talked about before came flooding in all at once. I had to step away. I went to my car and sat there in silence. For a moment I honestly considered driving away because I did not know if I could do it.

Then something shifted. The conversation from the night before in GriefShare came back to me. I realized I was standing in a bitter moment. I was angry and overwhelmed and hurting. But I also had a choice. I could stay in the bitterness or I could look for the sweetness inside of it.

I walked back into the building. I sat down at my desk and did exactly what I needed to do. I used Jason’s paperwork to guide me through the process. With tears running down my face, I looked up and quietly said, see babe, you are still teaching me things and you are not even here with me.

That was the day I truly understood what bittersweet meant.

It took processing. It took time. It took growing in ways I never wanted to grow. But I learned that bitter moments can be made sweet. Sometimes the sweetness is small. Sometimes it is quiet. Sometimes it is simply realizing love is still present even in loss. The choice is not always easy, but often it is ours to make.

In closing, I would encourage you to pause and truly look at the bitter moments you encounter. Sit with them. Feel them. But do not stay there. Ask yourself what beauty can still be found, what sweetness can still be created, even in the middle of the pain.

Bitterness will come. It is a natural part of grief and a very human response to loss. But what we do with those moments matters. Sweetness is not something that just appears on its own. It is something we choose. It is something we create. It is something we allow ourselves to see when we are ready.

Bittersweet moments are not about ignoring the hurt. They are about honoring the love that still remains within it.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.” Ecclesiastes 3:11