"But then, that's what grief is: a yearning for that one last moment of contact that would settle everything." — Katherine May

I have been thinking about grief a lot lately. Partly because of the project that I'm currently working on, but also due to the many personal losses I have experienced over the past few years. It made me wonder whether we are ever able to move on fully after losing somebody or something we care about so deeply.

A good friend of mine shared this beautiful TED talk with me last summer where a writer and podcaster Nora McInerny talks about her "hard-earned wisdom about life and death." McInerny's main argument is that we need to rethink the way we approach grief. Coping with grief, she says, is not about moving on. It's about moving forward.

I love this so much. And the more I'm learning from my own experience with grief, the more I'm starting to believe that it is true. That there are some losses in life that we will perhaps never be able to completely leave behind. But also that with time things will eventually become a tiny bit easier. As long as we keep moving forward.

To me, moving forward also means accepting the fact that grief is there to teach us something. It is there to teach us to appreciate life, including all the wonderful people and moments in it, to its fullest.

The heart-breaking story of Tony Johnson in Ricky Gervais's series After Life portrays this very well. (Note: If you haven't watched it, make sure you do. It is brilliantly sad and funny. And it will definitely make you cry.) Here is one of Tony's realizations about life on his continuous journey of grieving his wife's death:

"One day you'll eat your last meal, smell your last flower, hug your friend for the very last time. You might not know it's the last time, so that's why you should do everything you love with passion, you know? Treasure the few years you've got because that's all there is." — Ricky Gervais

Kindly,

Neva.