Your Path Home with Manners

07/17/2025

Anniversaries are hard no matter how long it’s been.

When the anniversary of a loved one's death comes around, it can feel like your heart remembers more than your mind can hold. The world may keep moving, unaware, but inside you, everything still aches. On days like this, give yourself permission to pause. You don’t have to be okay. You don’t have to 'move on.' You only need to breathe through one moment at a time. Light a candle. Speak their name. Cry if you must. Smile if you can. Do something that connects you to them: a favorite song, a shared memory, a walk in a place they loved. Let it be a day of tenderness, not pressure.

As the years go by, others may expect your grief to fade, to tidy itself, to take up less room. They may stop mentioning your loved one, or wonder quietly (or aloud) why this date still hurts. Remember: grief does not obey the calendar. Love does not expire. You are allowed to honor this day in whatever way feels true, whether it’s the first year or the twentieth. You do not have to listen when someone else’s comfort asks you to silence your heart. This is your relationship, your remembering, your way.

Grief isn’t something to fix. It’s something we learn to carry, with time, with love, with grace. And though it cuts, it also carves: space for deeper compassion, understanding, and presence. Know that what feels broken is also a doorway, to remembering, to healing, to holding them close in a new way. You are not alone in this.

Writer: Grieving Healing

Artist: Unknown

Source: https://ie.pinterest.com/pin/2885187257242630/

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07/17/2025

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Grief reshapes you in ways even the closest friends can’t always see. One day, you might show up with what looks like strength, answering calls, making jokes, doing your best impression of ‘okay.’ The next, the smallest thing, an empty chair, a song, a scent, can knock the breath from your lungs.

And it confuses people. They start to think you're unpredictable, inconsistent, maybe even unfair, offering comfort to one person but withdrawing from another, showing up for one event but skipping the next. They don’t see the quiet math behind every choice, what little energy you had, what emotional toll you could afford, what it cost just to get out of bed.

It’s not hypocrisy. It’s survival. When you’re grieving, you’re not living by double standards, you’re living without a map, trying to carry a weight that changes shape every day. And sometimes, it’s not that you don’t care. It’s that you simply can’t.

And the truth is, it doesn’t resolve quickly. Grief takes years, YEARS, and even after two, everything can still feel tangled and raw. The calendar moves on, but your heart doesn’t always follow. You find yourself still stumbling, still suddenly overwhelmed, still wondering when the world will feel solid under your feet again. And it doesn’t just change you, it ripples through the whole family, shifting dynamics in ways no one expected. Unspoken tension, distance, roles that used to make sense now fractured by loss.

Sometimes, in the fog of your own pain, you become less attuned to the feelings of others, not because you’re selfish, but because your system is overloaded. The emotional bandwidth shrinks. You miss cues, you forget to ask, you pull away when someone else needed closeness. It can look like neglect, like disinterest, even like coldness. But it’s not the same as cruelty or abuse. It’s not rooted in harm, it’s rooted in exhaustion.

But slowly, gently, the weight begins to shift. The days don’t always get easier, but you get stronger. And though healing doesn’t mean forgetting, one day you’ll find yourself breathing a little deeper, laughing without guilt, reaching out without fear. Not because the grief is gone, but because you’ve learned how to carry it with grace.

Writer: Grieving Healing

Artist: Unknown

Source: https://ie.pinterest.com/pin/20618110781565323/

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07/15/2025

So true.

07/14/2025

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The greatest way we can honour those we have lost
is by continuing to live our lives with purpose, joy, and courage,
because deep down, we know that’s exactly what they would want for us.

Though they may no longer walk beside us,
their love remains within us, quiet, steady, unwavering,
urging us forward, reminding us to embrace each day
not in sorrow, but in tribute to the life they lived
and the light they left behind.

In our laughter, they echo.
In our strength, they endure.
In our dreams, they live on.

So we keep reaching,
for the sun through the clouds,
for meaning in the quiet,
for hope when it falters,
and for the courage to keep becoming
the people they believed we could be.

And when we lift our eyes to the night sky,
we remember,
they are the stars above,
watching over us, guiding us gently,
reminding us that love does not end, it only changes form.

As we carry them in our hearts,
we become the living legacy of their love.

~ 'Their Light Lives On' by Spirit of a Hippie

~ Art by Jungsuk Lee

07/14/2025

So true. 💜

Grief is a quiet companion.
It doesn’t scream forever—
but it never truly leaves.

At first, it crashes over you,
loud and sharp, filling every breath with ache.
And then, slowly…
it begins to change shape.
It softens—but it doesn’t vanish.

You laugh again.
You dream again.
But beneath the smile is a silence—
a place where their name still echoes.
Grief tucks itself into the corners of your heart,
not to break you,
but to stay beside the love you never stopped carrying.

It becomes part of you.
It’s the scar left by something beautiful,
the evidence that someone once mattered so deeply
they could never truly be gone.

We don’t “move on.”
We move forward—with them.
In the way we love more gently.
In how we show up for others in pain.
In the way our hearts understand sorrow…
because we’ve lived it.

Grief doesn’t ask for permission.
It teaches you how to hold both love and loss in the same breath.
And through it,
they walk with us still—
as quiet and constant as the beat of our hearts.

©️Love & Loss

07/13/2025

It takes a village! 💕

One person cannot possibly do this work on their own. We are not a solo act. We are a team, and this team consists of caregivers, both personal and professional, volunteers who give their time unselfishly and generously simply to hold space and be present for another human being, any member of the hospice team, those who are preparing to say goodbye and are experiencing anticipatory grief, and anyone at a bedside holding the hand of someone who will soon take their last breath.

We are a community of compassionate souls, standing beside those facing life’s hardest moments, offering support not just to them, but to everyone who loves them.

End-of-life care is not something we do alone and our goal should be the same, to ensure that all human beings feel seen, heard, cared for well, and do not feel alone.

xo
Gabby
www.thehospiceheart.net 

07/13/2025

❤️

You never know when it’s coming…
But when it hits, it changes everything.
Grief doesn’t knock.
It just arrives.

Out of nowhere.
Middle of the grocery store.
Middle of a laugh.
Middle of a Friday night.

Sometimes, it falls like a soft mist.
Other times, it’s a full storm.

It can be quiet…
Or it can drown you.

And no matter how long it’s been,
You’re never “done” with it.

But eventually, you learn something powerful:
You don’t stop the rain.
You just learn to carry an umbrella…
Made of memories.

Their laugh.
Their favorite song.
The way they said your name.

That’s how you survive the downpour.

You carry the love.
Even when the sky breaks open.

07/09/2025

Our loved ones are always with us. ❤️

Though unseen, our departed loved ones walk beside us, still.

They live within the spaces we often overlook:
in the fabric of our hearts, where their love is forever woven,
in the silence after a deep breath,
in the warmth that lingers when we speak their name,
in the sudden feeling that we are not alone.

We do not stop loving them, even when they are gone.
Let the love we carry grow, expand, and flow freely,
not only in memory, but in the way we live,
in the kindness we offer,
in the presence we give to others.

Talk to them.
Whisper your thoughts, your love, your questions.
They are listening,
not from far away,
but from just beyond the veil, closer than we know.

Their love wraps around us still, gentle and enduring.
For love does not vanish.
It shifts, transforms, and remains quietly woven into the rhythm of our daily lives.

~ 'Closer Than We Know' by Spirit of a Hippie

~ Art via Pinterest

07/09/2025

So true. You don’t get over grief. 💜

People mean well.
They try to help.
They offer soft words like,
“Time heals…”
“You’ll find closure…”
“It gets easier…”

But unless they’ve sat in the quiet of an empty room,
where the bed still smells like someone they’ll never hold again—
Unless they’ve gripped a phone with trembling hands,
knowing the call will never come—
Unless they’ve gasped for breath mid-traffic,
because grief crashed over them like a wave—
they don’t truly know.

They don’t know what it’s like
to hear their laugh echo in memory,
so loud, so clear—
you turn around, expecting them to be there…
only to find nothing but the ache of remembering.

They don’t know
how the silence at night becomes deafening.
How the heart waits at the door,
long after the mind understands they’re not coming back.

And I hope they never do.
I hope they never learn what this kind of loss feels like.
Because once you know,
once you really know—
you understand that grief isn’t something to “move on” from.
You don’t get closure.
You carry it.
You live around it.
You love through it.

So please—
don’t tell me how I should feel.
Don’t offer timelines or tidy endings.
Just let me grieve.
Let me remember.
Let me feel it all—because that’s the only way I survive them not being here.

©️Love & Loss

07/04/2025

💜

Grief is the last, most profound way we show love to those who are gone. It's the persistent ache in our hearts that serves as a constant, poignant reminder of the happy times we shared, the joy that once filled our lives. When we're consumed by sadness, we instinctively remember the laughter, the shared adventures, and the quiet, intimate moments we experienced with our loved ones. Grief is undeniably hard, a heavy burden to bear, but it’s also a powerful affirmation that our love was real, authentic, and deeply meaningful.

When we hurt deeply, when the pain feels overwhelming, it’s precisely because we loved deeply. Our grief is a true measure of how much our loved ones meant to us, a testament to the profound impact they had on our lives. It's okay to be sad, to allow the tears to fall, because it means we had something beautiful, something extraordinary, to lose. Our grief, in its raw honesty, is a way of honoring the people we loved, of keeping their memory vibrantly alive in our hearts, allowing their essence to continue to shape us.

Remembering our loved ones is a journey, not a fixed destination. It's a winding path that navigates through both happy memories and sad ones, but always, ultimately, leads us back to the boundless love we shared. So let's hold on to that love, guarding it fiercely, and cherish every single memory we made with our loved ones. They may be physically gone, but they'll never be forgotten, for their love lives on within us.

©️ Love & Loss