How loss, love, and weight loss became part of my healing journey

Grief is strange. As I have been sharing, it can sit heavy on your chest and still somehow push you to move. It can make you feel weak and still reveal a strength you did not know you had. It can break your heart and, in the most unexpected way, wake your soul up.

I would never call grief good. Losing someone you love is not good. Missing my sister in the middle of ordinary moments is not good. Wanting to tell her about losing the 100lbs goal and remembering I cannot call her is not good and realizing that I will never be able to celebrate that moment with is even worse. There is no positive spin strong enough to make loss feel fair.

But I am learning that even in grief, something can still grow. Not because the pain disappears, but because love does not. Love keeps moving through us. Love keeps teaching us. Love keeps asking us to live in a way that honors the people we carry.

Grief Has Many Faces

On this journey, I have seen grief show up in many different ways. Some days it is tears. Some days it is silence. Some days it is irritability, exhaustion, prayer, laughter, memory, or a sudden wave that comes out of nowhere. Grief is not one thing. It is not always dramatic. Sometimes it is simply trying to function while your heart is still catching up with what your mind already knows. – (This is not new, I mean this blog has been dedicated to talking about these feelings)

And then there are the days when grief becomes a mirror. It shows you what matters. It shows you what you have been avoiding. It shows you how fragile life is, but also how sacred it is. Somewhere in that reflection, I began to feel something I did not expect: motivation.

The Motivation That Came from the Pain

It was not the kind of motivation that comes from wanting to impress anyone. It was not about proving that I was okay. I was not okay. I was grieving. I am grieving. But grief began to realign me. It made me ask myself hard questions: What am I doing with the life I still have? How am I caring for myself? Am I only surviving, or am I allowing God to help me rebuild?

That is where the zeal came from. It did not come loudly. It came quietly, through small decisions. Get up. Take a walk. Drink water. Choose a better meal. Pray. Breathe. Try again tomorrow. Those small choices became a way of telling myself, “You are still here, and your life still deserves care.”

My recent weight loss has become one of the clearest signs of that shift. It has not just been about pounds coming off. It has been about burdens being named. It has been about realizing that my body has carried grief, stress, tears, sleepless nights, and unanswered questions. Caring for it became part of my healing.

Weight Loss as a Form of Self-Love

For me, losing weight has become less about appearance and more about stewardship. It is me choosing not to abandon myself while grieving. It is me checking in with the person who keeps showing up, even when she is tired. It is me learning that self-care is not selfish, especially when your heart has been through so much.

Every healthier choice has felt like a small act of love. Every step has felt like a quiet declaration. Every bit of progress has reminded me that grief did not end my story. It changed it. It deepened it. But it did not take away my ability to become.

Honoring My Sister by Living

There are moments when I think about my sister and feel the ache so deeply. I think about her love, her presence, and the way she touched hearts. Missing her will always be part of me. But so will loving her. And that love has become a reason to live with more intention.

I do not believe honoring someone means staying stuck in pain. Sometimes honoring them means becoming softer, wiser, healthier, and more present. Sometimes it means allowing their love to keep producing fruit in your life. Sometimes it means choosing to live well because they lived, loved, and mattered.

The Positive Side of Grief

The positive side of grief is not the loss. It is not pretending the pain is beautiful. It is not rushing healing or forcing joy. The positive side is what grief can reveal when we are honest enough to sit with it: love is powerful, life is fragile, time matters, and healing is still possible.

Grief has given me a different kind of zeal. A zeal to take better care of myself. A zeal to stop postponing healing. A zeal to live more intentionally. A zeal to become the version of myself that pain could not destroy.

So, I am learning to carry both: the ache and the action, the tears and the discipline, the memory and the movement. I can miss my sister and still move forward. I can grieve and still grow. I can cry and still choose life.

Because maybe one of grief’s most sacred contradictions is this: it can break your heart, but it can also awaken your soul.

If you are reading this while grieving, this is my prayer for you: may you give yourself permission to be where you are without shame. May you stop measuring your healing by other people’s timelines. May you remember that crying does not mean you are weak, resting does not mean you are quitting, and moving forward does not mean you have forgotten. May God meet you in the quiet places, the heavy mornings, the unexpected tears, and the small victories no one else sees. Take the walk. Drink the water. Say the prayer. Choose yourself gently. Your grief may be part of your story, but it is not the end of your story. There is still breath in your body, purpose on your life, love around you, and grace enough for the next step.

With love,
Your favorite Grieving Sister