Homes and Heart with Letitia

There are moments in life that divide our stories into two parts: before and after.

The day grief entered my life was one of those moments.

Before that day, I understood loss in the way most people do—from a distance. I knew it existed. I had seen others walk through it. I had offered prayers, condolences, and hugs. But I had never fully understood what grief could do to a person until it found me.

When the phone rang, my world changed in an instant.

One moment life was moving forward as it always had. The next, everything stopped. The plans I had for that day no longer mattered. The things I had worried about the day before suddenly seemed insignificant. Time stood still while the rest of the world continued moving around me.

That’s one of the cruelest parts of grief. Your world shatters, but everyone else’s keeps going.

But there was another part of grief I never expected.

While I was grieving, I found myself carrying the grief of others. I watched people I loved struggle under the weight of the same loss. I saw tears that mirrored my own. I listened to stories, comforted hurting hearts, and tried to be strong when I felt anything but strong.

There were times I felt guilty for grieving at all.

I would look at parents, spouses, children, and siblings and convince myself that their grief mattered more than mine. I would tell myself that they had a greater right to hurt, a greater reason to cry, a greater claim to the loss. I felt selfish for carrying my own pain when theirs seemed so much heavier.

What I have learned is that grief is not a competition.

Pain cannot be measured or ranked. Loving someone gives you the right to grieve them. There is no hierarchy of heartbreak. Just because someone else’s loss is different does not make yours any less real.

Still, that guilt can be difficult to shake.

Especially when the loss comes through violence.

Because grief after murder is different.

When someone dies from illness or old age, there is often time to prepare your heart, even if only a little. There may be conversations, goodbyes, or moments to hold onto. But murder steals all of that. It is sudden. Violent. Unfair.

It leaves behind questions that may never be answered.

It leaves anger mixed with sadness. It leaves you searching for understanding where there may never be any. It leaves a wound that feels deeper because it wasn’t just a life that was lost—it was a life taken.

And when you have experienced that kind of loss more than once, something inside of you changes.

I have lost two people to murder.

The second time, the grief didn’t feel new. It felt familiar.

It felt like a nightmare I had already survived somehow finding its way back to me.

The emotions returned like a bad habit I never wanted, settling into places I thought had finally begun to heal. The memories of the first loss came rushing back alongside the new pain. It wasn’t just one grief anymore—it was two griefs colliding with each other.

People often say time heals.

But losses like these have a way of circling back around when you least expect them. A news story. A phone call. A date on the calendar. A memory that appears out of nowhere.

Suddenly, you’re grieving today and yesterday all at once.

Sometimes it feels like grief has no finish line.

Like you spend years learning how to carry it, only to discover it has been quietly waiting around the corner for another chance to knock the wind out of you.

Yet somehow, we keep going.

Not because we stop hurting. Not because we forget. But because the people we lost mattered. Their lives mattered. Their stories mattered.

Grief has changed me in ways I never wanted, but it has also taught me something important.

Love does not end when a person’s life does.

The pain remains because the love remains.

And while there are still days when the weight feels unbearable, I have learned that grief is not something we overcome. It is something we learn to carry. Some days we carry it well. Other days it carries us.

The day grief changed everything was not just the day I lost someone.

It was the day I learned that heartbreak can revisit you, that healing is not always linear, and that carrying the grief of others can sometimes make you forget to honor your own.

If you are walking through grief today—whether it is fresh or years old—give yourself permission to feel it. Your pain matters. Your loss matters. Your love matters.

And even when it feels like grief will never end, take comfort in knowing that the depth of your sorrow is only a reflection of the depth of your love. Sometimes that love is what carries us through when nothing else can.