12/29/2025
This is a beautiful story of grief and how it change over time.
As the first anniversary of my friend Marjorie’s death approaches, I find myself thinking about all the layers of grief, not as something to get through, but something that has evolved with me.
Her death came unexpectedly, and I was left wanting more time. That wanting still lives in me. But what has changed is the way grief now sits beside me, softer than it once was, shaped by love rather than only loss. In grieving her, I have learned that grief doesn’t only take, it reveals. It shows us where life touched us most deeply.
Marjorie was the kind of person whose presence asked for nothing and yet gave everything. Watching her care for patients, support families, and show up with such steadiness and heart taught me what it means to be fully human. Losing her hurt in the way only a true gift can hurt when it’s gone. And yet, I am learning that grief doesn’t ask me to stay hidden beneath its weight. It asks me to remember. To say her name. To tell her story.
Maybe grief is not something we move on from, but something we move with. Like the paper left on the floor after opening a gift, evidence that something meaningful was once held here.
Grief is memory. Grief is love. Grief is honoring the gift. And perhaps the truest way we do that is by living with gratitude for those who were woven into our lives, even when the time we had was far shorter than we hoped.
Each of us has a Marjorie, someone whose life changed us, whose name still rises quietly in certain moments. You are allowed to read this through the lens of your own love and loss. (((Hug)))
xo
Gabby
www.thehospiceheart.net
