THOUGHTS | on grief, loss, and the silver linings in between

On June 12, 2023, my life changed forever. My dad passed away from dementia.

I want to talk about grief today — but differently.

For most of my adult life, I was focused on building. And somewhere along the way, I got very good at boxing things up. Emotions that felt unproductive, I put away. Grief that came not from only losing someone but from not meeting a goal, from missed opportunities, from years of unexplained infertility and the quiet devastation that came with it. I felt like I was supposed to keep moving. So I did.

What I didn't realize was that I was also putting away other things. Time for play. Time to take care of myself. The smaller moments that make a life feel lived instead of just managed.

When my dad died, the grief was too large for any box I had.

And it wasn't only the size of it. I had to handle the realities of death in real time — writing his obituary, planning his celebration of life, designing an urn for his ashes. There was no option to put it away. I had to feel it.

For a while, I had a dark cloud over me, and everything, all the other emotions I had tucked away started coming up. I found I could only watch TV reruns I already knew the endings to, any little unexpected hiccup threw me into a spiral. It took until November of 2025 (2 1/2 years) for the clouds to begin to part.

When they did, something in me had shifted.

I realized that when I'm 80, I don't want to look back and see only the work I've done. Only see emotionless tasks completed. I want to see community, relationships, celebrations, play, love, joy, grief, tears. I want to have felt my life, not just moved through it.

What I learned is allowing yourself to feel grief — not to dwell in it, but to actually feel it — makes you stronger, more resilient. It helps you move forward in a way that pushing down emotions never will. It helps you see that maybe what didn't work out was making room for something better.

The feelings you allow yourself to feel can bring you to greater realizations than you ever imagined.

Words have always been a throughline for me. A way to manage the struggles. To find the silver lining or the push to keep going — whether or not I was letting myself fully feel what I was carrying.

Whenever I have felt a pull, a struggle, something uncomfortable, I have turned to words.

A narrow cuff with "brave" after we moved to Nashville — a reminder to push outside of myself when everything felt unfamiliar. A treasured ring stamped "small steps still get you there" for our IVF journey. A wide ring with "you're doing fucking great" as a reminder that I was doing exactly that, even in the depths of losing my dad.

Words have so much power. That is why I have always made jewelry with them. A permanent (a little less permanent than a tattoo) reminder you can wear.

(em)powered words grew from that same place. A tool to help you find the words that give you power. The Word Guide was the first thing I built. But I am building more — a Phrase Guide, and a guide for living with your word. Not through grand gestures or huge steps. Through tiny ones. And celebrating along the way.

Grief is such an important emotion to allow yourself to feel. It has a way of reshaping us, whether we're ready or not.

If something landed with you, send me an email. I'd love to continue the conversation.