The Price of Love
The Price of Love
A reflection on grief, loss, and why healing is not the same thing as forgetting.
Grief does not arrive because something went wrong.
It arrives because something mattered.
That is the part people often forget.
We talk about grief as if it is an illness to be cured, a problem to be solved, or a weakness to overcome. We tell people to move on, stay strong, keep busy, and get back to normal.
But grief does not work like that.
It never has.
This Is Not a Complaint
This is not a complaint.
This is not a performance.
This is a lived-experience reflection from someone who has spent much of his working life around loss.
As a funeral director, I have stood beside families on some of the hardest days they will ever face.
I have seen strong men cry.
I have seen quiet women carry entire families through unimaginable pain.
I have seen children ask questions that no adult can properly answer.
And I have learned something simple.
Grief does not discriminate.
It comes for all of us eventually.
The Myth of "Getting Over It"
One of the strangest phrases in the English language is:
"You need to get over it."
Get over what?
A mother?
A father?
A husband?
A wife?
A child?
A friend?
A life that was woven into your own?
The truth is that most people never "get over" profound loss.
What they do is learn to carry it differently.
The sharp edges soften.
The constant pain becomes an occasional ache.
The tears become memories.
The memories become stories.
And the stories become part of who we are.
That is not failure.
That is healing.
The Weight We Carry
For many people, grief is not just about death.
People grieve relationships.
Health.
Dreams.
Opportunities.
The life they thought they would have.
Sometimes people are carrying grief they have never even named.
It sits quietly in the background.
A sadness they cannot explain.
A tiredness they cannot shake.
A feeling that something important is missing.
The human heart keeps records whether we want it to or not.
What I Learned
I will say this plainly.
There have been periods in my own life when pressure, loss, illness, and uncertainty collided all at once.
Like many people from Northern Ireland, I was raised with a simple instruction:
Keep going.
Get on with it.
Don't make a fuss.
Sometimes that works.
Sometimes it doesn't.
What I learned is that carrying everything alone rarely makes it lighter.
The strongest thing a person can do is often the thing they least want to do:
Speak.
Tell someone.
Ask for help.
Allow another human being to stand beside them.
The Wider Lesson
As a society, we are very good at acknowledging death.
We are less good at acknowledging grief.
We send cards.
We attend funerals.
We shake hands.
Then, a few weeks later, life moves on.
For everyone except the person carrying the loss.
That is why kindness matters.
That is why checking in matters.
That is why listening matters.
Not because we can remove somebody's grief.
But because nobody should have to carry it entirely alone.
Mindspire's Position
Mindspire is not therapy.
It is not diagnosis.
It is not a crisis service.
It is not a substitute for professional help.
Mindspire is a non-clinical lived-experience platform.
It exists to help people turn difficult experiences into structured understanding.
To recognise patterns.
To speak earlier.
To seek help sooner.
And to understand that recovery is not weakness.
It is work.
Grief forms part of that journey for many people.
Not something to be erased.
Something to be understood.
The Clear Takeaway
The clear takeaway is this:
If you are grieving, do not judge yourself for it.
Do not measure your recovery against somebody else's timeline.
Do not mistake tears for weakness.
Do not mistake silence for strength.
Talk to someone you trust.
Share the memory.
Tell the story.
Speak the name.
Love leaves a mark because it mattered.
And that mark is not something to be ashamed of.
If you are struggling, contact your GP, NHS 111, emergency services, a trusted person, or a local mental health support organisation. Do not sit alone with something that needs shared.
or Contact
Final Thought
Grief never completely leaves us.
Nor should it.
The people we loved helped shape who we are.
The fact that we miss them is not evidence of damage.
It is evidence of connection.
The pain changes.
The love remains.
And, in the end, perhaps that is what grief really is:
Love that has nowhere left to go, except into memory.
The past cannot be edited.
But it can be honoured.
And sometimes, honouring it properly is how we find the strength to keep moving forward.
Michael P. Lennon Jr
Mindspire | Where Lived Experience Finds Its Voice in Mental Health
HMW-AI-LIC-1984-NC-GOV
#Mindspire #Grief #Bereavement #MentalHealthRecovery #LivedExperience #MH84 #ForwardMotion #MPL
Comments