This week, a devastating high-rise fire in Hong Kong has left at least 128 people dead and triggered a sweeping criminal investigation, officials confirmed. The blaze tore through Wang Fuk Court, a residential tower in the Tai Po district, overwhelming firefighters and trapping residents as smoke filled hallways and stairwells.

Authorities have arrested eight people so far — a mix of contractors, renovation workers and individuals connected to the building’s recent construction work — as investigators examine whether improper alterations or safety lapses contributed to how quickly the fire spread. Officials are also reviewing the building’s fire-management systems and evacuation routes as rescue teams continue searching the structure and identifying victims.

Reminiscent of London’s Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, the scale of loss is among the worst in Hong Kong in recent memory, leaving entire families displaced or grieving. Survivors described waking up to alarms, thick black smoke that made it impossible to see, and residents trying to reach windows and balconies for air.

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In the days since, relief groups have mobilized across Hong Kong — and unexpectedly, so have fans and artists in the K-pop community. Members of the girl group “aespa” and several other South Korean performers quietly donated to emergency-response funds supporting survivors, according to AP reporting. Their contributions are helping supply displaced residents with temporary housing, medical care, food and essentials.

While the donations represent only a fraction of the ongoing recovery effort, officials say international attention has helped amplify local relief work and drawn new resources to survivors who lost homes, belongings and loved ones.

In addition to donations, K-pop music awards show MAMA was to be held in Hong Kong. While organizers deemed the two-day ceremony too far on the timeline to cancel, the red carpet prior to the broadcasted event was canceled. The fire seems to have dampened the event, as many fans deeming the event “boring,” and others with mixed responses on the continuation of the show despite the fire.

As investigators continue to determine the fire’s cause and potential accountability, Hong Kong authorities have signaled that more arrests could follow. For now, the focus remains on stabilizing survivors and supporting the families of those who never made it out of the tower.

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~Rumi

Before 2011, I had heard many spiritual teachers talk about “accepting what is.” It sounded nice in theory, like good mental information to chew on. But it didn’t feel embodied. I understood it intellectually, but I wasn’t living it.

Then I attended a weekend intensive with a teacher I deeply respected, and something in the way he explained it hit deeper. It wasn’t just talk. The essence of his words turned a spiritual idea into something I could start to live.

In that talk, he shared a story about a father whose son had become paraplegic. The father was devastated because he had so many expectations—that his son would go to college, graduate, get married, and have children. But those dreams died the day of the accident.

The father was still living in a mental loop: “I should be going to his graduation.” “I should be at his wedding.” He couldn’t let go of the life he thought his son was supposed to have.

The teacher explained that the father needed to grieve his expectations, not just in his mind, but in his body. That hit me hard. It was like an athlete expecting to win a championship and then getting injured. They’re stuck in that same mental trap: “I should have had that career,” and they suffer for years because life handed them a different card.

That story cracked something open in me.

The Weight of ‘Shoulds’ on the Body

I’m someone who tends to be idealistic. I had high expectations for myself, others, and how life was supposed to go. And when people didn’t live up to those ideals, whether in business, relationships, or everyday interactions, it really hurt. I believed people should be honest, ethical, and truthful. They shouldn’t lie; they shouldn’t manipulate. I had a long list of “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” that governed how I expected life to go.

When life didn’t meet those expectations, I felt disappointed, angry, even hateful at times. My body held the tension. I had chronic stress, emotional pain, and health challenges. For six months, I was even coughing up blood, and doctors couldn’t find anything wrong. Looking back, I see now that I was holding on so tightly to my expectations that my body was breaking under the pressure.

This is what that teacher was pointing to: that to truly accept what is, we have to grieve our expectations on a body level. It’s not enough to tell yourself affirmations like “just accept it” until you’re blue in the face. You have to feel where your body says, “No.”

That means noticing: does your body feel heavy? Is your heart tight or tense? If there’s anything other than lightness or peace, then there’s something you haven’t grieved or released.

By staying present with those sensations, without trying to fix or change them, you start to feel shifts. The signs of release are subtle but real: yawning, tears, vibrations, or a sense of energetic movement. It’s like something in your nervous system finally says, “Okay, I can let go now.”

Letting Go Became the Practice

After that retreat, I spent the whole summer sitting with these “should” beliefs. Every day, I made time to observe my thoughts and emotions. I noticed how often I was clinging to ideas like “I should have done this” or “they shouldn’t act that way.” It was uncomfortable at first. I didn’t realize how much I had been carrying around.

I committed three to four months to this work. Being self-employed gave me the space to dive deep, and I felt it was necessary to do my own inner work before I could help others with theirs. I probably put in hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours during that time.

Through that commitment, I released huge chunks of subconscious programming I didn’t even know were there. I realized I had inherited a lot of my “should” thinking from my upbringing. My mother also had strong expectations; when things didn’t go her way, she’d have intense emotional reactions. I had absorbed that pattern without realizing it.

At the end of those few months, I felt like I had begun the real journey of embodying spiritual growth. Not just reading about it. Living it. Accepting what is became something I could feel in my bones, not just think about.

But that was just the beginning.

Acceptance Happens in Layers

Over the next ten years, I noticed a pattern: about every six months to a year, a similar trigger would arise. Same emotion, same resistance, but less intense. The duration of my suffering shrank, too. What used to upset me for weeks now only remained for a few days, then a few hours.

I came to understand that accepting “what is” happens in layers, like peeling an onion. At first, I released the more obvious emotional charges held in the heart or gut. But as time went on, I discovered deeper, more subtle conditioning stored in the nervous system, bones, tailbone, even in my skin and sense organs.

The body doesn’t release it all at once—maybe because doing so would overwhelm the system. With each layer that releases, it feels like the body grants permission to go deeper.

To find and clear these deeper layers, I learned muscle testing from the Yuen Method of Chinese Energetics that helps uncover subconscious resistances. Muscle testing was quite a powerful experience, teaching me to intuitively talk to the body to find and release unconscious ancestral conditioning and forgotten traumas that are decades-old or generational programs located in different body areas.

My Personal “Should”: Loved Ones Should See My Good Intentions

For example, I used to hate it when my father made negative assumptions about my good intentions or deeds. Instead of appreciating my efforts, he would criticize them, leaving me with the feeling that no matter how hard I tried, it was never good enough for him.

This took me many years to work through, and each year, with each trigger, I discovered so much conditioning. I would have emotional meltdowns; my body would be tense and angry, just like my mom, because that’s how she is. From working on these triggers over the years, he can hardly get a reaction out of me anymore.

I was essentially reacting in a hardwired way. When my father made negative assumptions about my mom, she would often respond with emotional meltdowns and angry outbursts. I realized I had inherited the same pattern.

Over the years, each time my father pushed a button, I had to do continuous work on the different layers of conditioned reactions in specific areas of the body. His button-pushing became a gift: it constantly revealed more hidden layers of emotional reactivity.

These days, if he makes negative assumptions, it might still bother me a little, but it’s nothing like the angry, hateful emotional reactions I used to have. If my body still reacts slightly, it’s giving me feedback, making me aware that there is still unconscious conditioning that needs to be released.

If you do this work, over time, you will notice your loved ones may still push the same buttons and sometimes even say unkind words or behave in ways that used to deeply hurt you. But your triggers and reactivity can be significantly reduced.

You won’t take their words or actions as personally anymore. Instead, there’s a growing sense of love and acceptance—for yourself, the situation, and your loved ones, regardless of what they do. Doing this work feels like moving closer to unconditional love, or at least as close as we can get.

The Ongoing Unfolding of Acceptance

This process taught me that accepting what is isn’t a one-time breakthrough. It’s a slow unwinding of everything we were taught to expect, demand, or resist. It’s a return to what’s actually here, moment by moment, breath by breath.

Even now, I still get triggered. But I’m better at meeting those moments with curiosity instead of judgment. I know the signs in my body. I can feel when something hasn’t been grieved yet.

If you’re like me, if you have a long list of “shoulds” about yourself, about others, about life, maybe it’s time to sit with them. To feel where they land in your body. To grieve the life you thought was supposed to happen.

Because healing doesn’t come from controlling life. It comes from letting go of the fight against it. It comes from feeling into what is, with an open heart and a patient presence.

About Paul Wong

Paul Wong is the founder of Chinese Energetics, a method he’s practiced for over fifteen years to help high-performing professionals release chronic stress and insecurities rooted in generational and early life imprints. His work supports a return to clarity, emotional stability, and grounded inner power. Paul offers live workshops, online classes, and personalized sessions. Learn more at www.chineseenergetics.com or contact him at paul@chineseenergetics.com.

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“Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.” ~Jack Kornfield

Her absence lingers in the stillness of early mornings, in the moments between tasks, in the hush of evening when the day exhales. I’ve gotten good at moving. At staying busy. At producing. But sometimes, especially lately, the quiet catches me—and I fall in.

Grief doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it’s a whisper, one you barely hear until it’s grown into a wind that bends your bones.

It’s been nearly three years since my daughter passed. People told me time would help. That the firsts—first holidays, first birthday without her—would be the hardest. And maybe that was true.

But what no one prepared me for was how her absence would echo into the years that followed. How grief would evolve, shape-shift, and sometimes grow heavier—not lighter—with time. How her loss would uncover older wounds. Ones that predate her birth. Wounds that go back to a little girl who never quite felt safe enough to just be.

I’d like to say I’ve spent the past few years healing. Meditating. Journaling. Growing. And I did—sort of. Inconsistently. Mostly as a checkmark, doing what a healthy, mindful person is supposed to do, but without much feeling. I went through the motions, hoping healing would somehow catch up.

What I found instead was a voice I hadn’t truly listened to in years—my inner child, angry and waiting. While this year’s whirlwind pace pulled me further away, the truth is, I began losing touch with her long before.

She waited, quietly at first. But ignored long enough, she began to stir. Her protest wasn’t loud. It was physical—tight shoulders, shallow breath, scattered thoughts, restless sleep. A kind of anxious disconnection I kept trying to “fix” by doing more.

I filled my days with obligations and outward-focused energy, thinking productivity might shield me from the ache.

But the ache never left.

It just got smarter—showing up in my body, in my distracted mind, in the invisible wall between me and the world.

Until the day I finally stopped. I don’t know if I was too tired to keep running or if my grief finally had its way with me. But I paused long enough to pull a card from my self-healing oracle deck. It read:

“Hear and know me.”

I stared at the words and wept.

This was her. The little girl in me. The one who had waited through years of striving and performing and perfecting. The one who wasn’t sure she was lovable unless she earned it. The one who held not just my pain but my joy, too. My tenderness. My creativity. My curiosity.

She never left. She just waited—watching, hurting, hoping I’d remember.

For so long, I thought healing meant fixing. Erasing. Becoming “better” so I wouldn’t have to feel the ache anymore.

But she reminded me that healing is less about removing pain and more about returning to myself.

I’m still learning how to be with her. I don’t always know what she needs. But I’m listening now.

Sometimes, she just wants to color or lie on the grass. Sometimes she wants to cry. Sometimes she wants pancakes for dinner. And sometimes, she wants nothing more than to be told she’s safe. That I see her. That I won’t leave again.

These small, ordinary acts feel like re-parenting. I’m learning how to mother myself, even as I continue grieving my daughter. It’s a strange thing—to give the care I long to give her, to the parts of me that were once just as small, just as tender, just as in need.

I’ve spoken so much about the loss of my daughter. The space she once filled echoes every day. But what also lingers is her way of being—her authenticity. She was always exactly who she was in each moment. No apologies. No shrinking.

In my own journey of trying to fit in, of not wanting to be different, I let go of parts of myself just to be accepted.

She, on the other hand, stood out—fearlessly. The world called her special needs. I just called her Lily.

Her authenticity reminded me of something I had lost in myself. And now, authenticity is what my inner child has been waiting for—for so, so long.

Sometimes I wonder if the universe gave me Lily not just to teach her but to be taught by her. Maybe our children don’t just inherit from us—we inherit from them, too.

Her gift, her legacy, wasn’t just love. It was truth. The kind of truth that comes from living as you are.

Maybe her lesson for me is the one I’m just now beginning to accept: that being fully myself is the most sacred way I can honor her.

It’s not easy. The adult in me wants a checklist, a result, a clean timeline. But she reminds me: healing isn’t a destination. It’s a relationship.

It’s a relationship with the past—yes—but also with the present moment. With the part of me that still flinches under pressure. With the softness I once thought I had to abandon in order to survive.

I’m learning that my softness was never the problem. It was the silence that followed when no one responded to it.

She is the key. The key to my own heart.

It doesn’t always come in waves.

Sometimes it’s a flicker, a breath, a quiet knowing that I’m still here—and that they are, too.

My daughter, in the memories that move like wind through my life. And my inner child, in the softness I’m learning to reclaim. In the space where grief and love hold hands, we all meet.

Maybe that’s the lesson she’s been shouting all along: that we can’t truly love others if we abandon ourselves. That within our own hearts—tender, bruised, still beating—lies the key to beginning again.

We can’t mother our lost children the way we once did.

But maybe, in their absence, we can begin to mother the small, forgotten parts of ourselves—with the same love, the same patience, the same fierce devotion.

Maybe that’s how we honor them—not by moving on, but by moving inward.

About Elizabeth Candy

Elizabeth Candy is a writer, mother, and spiritual seeker. She writes about grief, healing, and the journey of coming home to oneself after loss. She believes we can find our way by listening inward and loving the forgotten parts of ourselves. You can read more of her writing at lifeafterlil.blogspot.com, or follow her on Instagram @lifeafterlil.

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“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.” ~Eckhart Tolle

In July 2023, my father died in a tragic accident. We were devastated—my sisters, my mother, and I. Or so I thought.

What followed in the months after his death forced me to confront the truth of my mother’s emotional disconnection, a truth I had sensed but never fully allowed myself to see. In losing my father, I also lost the illusion of the mother I thought I had.

A Sudden Exit

By September, just two months after my father’s death, my mother packed up and left the home we had just helped her settle into. She moved from Florida to Alabama to be with a man she had secretly loved for years—her high school crush. A man she had long referred to as her “co-author.” I will call him Roy.

He had been a nightly fixture in her life for a while. She would stay on the phone with him late into the evening, even while my dad slept in the next room. She always claimed it didn’t bother my father. But looking back, I wonder if he just swallowed the discomfort, like so many other things.

Let’s take a step back. In 2022, my sister and I bought a home for our parents to retire in comfortably. We thought we were giving them a safe and loving space to grow old together. But before my father even passed away, my mother had already planned her escape. The house we bought wasn’t her sanctuary. It was a stopover.

She didn’t ask us for help moving. She didn’t even warn us. She bought new luggage, made quiet arrangements, and disappeared. We were suddenly bombarded with text messages filled with excitement: stories of her “new life,” her “adventures,” and her rediscovered love. She glowed with freedom while the rest of us were still gasping for air.

A New Life, A New Name

By January—six months after my father died—she was married to Roy. She changed her last name. She discarded decades of shared identity with my father like she was shedding an old coat. She left behind his ashes. She left the framed photos that we had prepared for his memorial. It was as if he had never existed.

But it wasn’t just him she left behind. She also abandoned her daughters. Her grandchildren. Her great-grandchildren. A family many would cherish, tossed aside like clutter.

Her new story was one of long-suffering redemption. She recast herself as the woman who had endured a marriage with a difficult man and had finally, after decades, found joy. The truth? She had slowly detached from the rest of us for years—investing more time in writing projects and Facebook groups aligned with Roy’s interests, and less in her own family.

Her new husband had also just lost his spouse, only days after my dad died. The narrative practically wrote itself: two grieving souls who found each other through fate. But those of us watching from the outside knew the foundation had been laid long before the funerals.

The Pain of Rewriting the Past

Eventually, my sisters and I had to step away. We had asked for space to grieve our father—kindly, repeatedly. But every boundary was met with denial, deflection, or emotional manipulation. There was no recognition of our pain, only excitement about her “next chapter.”

Sometimes I wrestle with the urge to correct her version of events. In her telling, she’s the eternal victim: a woman finally liberated, only to be judged by ungrateful daughters who refused to be happy for her. But I’ve learned that arguing with someone’s internal mythology rarely leads to healing. It only deepens the divide.

So, I let go. Not of the truth, but of the need for her to see it.

I grieved deeply—not only for my father, but for the mother I thought I had. I began to wonder: Had she ever wanted children? Had she ever truly been emotionally available? Was it all performative?

Those are hard questions to ask. But once I allowed myself to see her clearly—not as the mother I hoped she was, but as the woman she actually is—I began to feel something surprising: relief. And eventually, acceptance. Accepting that a parent is incapable of giving you the love you needed is one of the hardest emotional tasks we face. But it’s also one of the most liberating.

Breaking the Cycle

There were red flags in childhood. My mom wasn’t nurturing. She often complained of pain, stayed stuck on the couch, irritable and disconnected from the rest of the family. I walked on eggshells around her. I can’t recall warm, playful memories. That emotional void quietly shaped me in ways I didn’t fully understand until recently.

I developed an attachment style that drew me to avoidant relationships, repeating old patterns. I didn’t know how to ask for what I needed because I had never learned to recognize my needs in the first place.

Through therapy, reflection, and support, I began to break the cycle. But it required giving up the fantasy. It required grieving not just the loss of my parents, but the loss of the childhood I wished I had. This is not a story of blaming parents, but rather one of gaining a deeper understanding of my mother to better understand myself.

I want to be clear: I have compassion for my mother. She grew up with mental illness in her home. She wasn’t nurtured either. She didn’t learn how to attune, connect, or show up. She may have done the best she could with what she had.

But compassion doesn’t mean ignoring harm. I can hold both truths: her pain was real, and so is the pain she inflicted.

The Freedom of Letting Go

I’ve stopped hoping for an apology. I’ve stopped trying to explain myself. And I’ve stopped trying to earn her love.

Instead, I’m investing in the relationships that nourish me. I’m giving myself the emotional safety I never had. I’m allowing myself to feel it all—the grief, the clarity, the compassion, the peace. Letting go of a parent doesn’t make you cold-hearted. It means you’ve decided to stop betraying yourself.

Because here’s the truth I’ve come to accept: we can love our parents and still recognize that the relationship isn’t healthy. We can give grace for their pain without sacrificing our own healing. And in some cases, we can—and must—walk away.

There is freedom in seeing our parents as they really are—not as idealized figures, but as complex, flawed humans. When we hold onto illusions, we gaslight ourselves. We call ourselves too sensitive or too needy when in reality, we’re responding to unmet needs that have been there all along.

To me, that doesn’t mean sitting in resentment about what you didn’t get from your parents; it means figuring out how to provide that for yourself as an adult. If we don’t examine those early wounds, we carry them forward. We struggle to trust. We tolerate toxic dynamics. We confuse love with emotional labor.

Understanding where it all began leads to healthy change. We can choose different relationships. We can choose ourselves.

And that, I’ve learned, is where healing begins.

About Anissa

Anissa Bell is a licensed marriage and family therapist and sleep specialist who helps anxious minds find rest—even when life feels anything but restful. She works with clients to untangle the worries that keep them up at night, including work stressors, relationship problems, complicated family dynamics, and the overall life messiness that fuels anxiety and insomnia. Learn more about her therapy practice at sleep-anxiety.com orclaritytherapyassociates.com, or get to know her on a more personal level HERE.

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I believe what triggered this depressing event for me was that my mom always watched when my dad and I, or my sisters and I, would ride a ride. She would hold everybody’s things and wave to us from the sidelines. Since I hadn’t ridden a ride in almost a decade, it makes sense why I was looking for her while we were riding the carousel. My brain was still computing that she was supposed to be somewhere out in the crowd, but she wasn’t. 

Healing Doesn’t Always Come 

Although my mom has been gone for almost a decade, I still have times when my brain has convinced me that she is still with us, just like this situation at the carousel. I have also had times when I swore I saw her out in public, but it is just a random woman. While I understand this is a trauma response, I have been told that it is odd that it is still affecting me all these years later. However, what some might see as odd might just be what they don’t understand. 

I haven’t come across a person who lost their mom when they were a teenager as it normally doesn’t happen. While I’m sure there are people across the world whose moms passed away when they were a teen, I personally haven’t met anyone. The closest I came to knowing someone who also related to experiencing the death of someone they loved at a young age was a friend from college. Her fiance passed away due to a car accident, and his death sent her into a depression that still shows up every now and then. 

She has since married another man, but you can tell that her former fiance’s death still bothers her. I can relate to my friend in some instances because she lost someone she loved at a young age; however, I can’t go out and get a new mom. It’s not like I can just start over again. My mom was my mom and there is no replacing her, and I wouldn’t want to. My mom wasn’t perfect, but she was the best mom for my sisters and me. 

It is not surprising that our lives would change so much after her passing since she was the heartbeat of our family. You could always depend on her and rely on her to help you solve any problems. Nowadays, we tend to feel lost about the problems we face. We try our best, but nothing has been the same since my mom passed away.

Allowing Grief to Take Up a Part of Your Life

Ever since the day my mom passed away, grief has taken up a significant amount of space in my heart. I will never be the same person I was before my mom passed away. Granted, I already had depression prior to my mom’s passing, but her passing has done nothing to help my depression. It has only grown and intensified. Most people think depression is just crying and staying in your bed, and sometimes it is, but other times, it is anger outbursts, feeling misunderstood, or feeling hopeless about the future. 

Grief coexisting with depression is a double punch that I have to face every day. A new family moved in behind our home, and to this day, I cannot understand how they host parties and celebrations outside of their home almost every weekend. While my logical mind understands they never knew my mom and my personal loss doesn’t affect them, I still don’t understand how the world can keep spinning when my own life died a long time ago. Nothing is the same anymore, and it will never be the same again. 

Many people will say this is pessimistic, but for those who say that, I would argue that they have never gone through the death of a loved one or had to face grief. They simply don’t understand. Sometimes it takes all the strength in your body to admit that things won’t be the same because, when you do, the tears come, and the pain in your heart intensifies. Things will never be the same, and there is no point pretending they will be. 

My entire family has been affected by the death of my mom and rightfully so. To have someone so central to your life pass away is enough to send anyone into the darkest spiral of sorrow, depression, and pain. My family and I try our best to pick up the recovered pieces of this painful thing we call life, but our lives have been permanently altered by my mom’s death, and things will never return to what they were when she was alive. 

Giving Yourself Permission to Grieve Your Former Life 

Something that I have had to do is allow myself to grief my past life. When my mom was here, everything seemed brighter. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was better because she was in it. Once she passed away, it felt as though all the light in my life burned out. If you have also felt this, know that you are not alone in your struggles. We need to turn to Jesus and rely on Him to help us as we take time to grieve. 

Grieving will last for a long time, and for some of us, it might last for the rest of our lives. We have to understand that this is okay and is nothing to be ashamed of. We grieve so much because we loved so much. Therefore, we never need to be ashamed of our tears or our memories because they are immeasurable. 

Through the pain and grief, we never need to ignore the Lord. We can cast our anxieties, worries, and fears on Him because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). Bring all of your pain, sorrow, and tears to Jesus and allow Him to give your soul peace. This is not a one-time practice, but rather, something we must continue to do throughout our lives. When pain, anxiety, and struggles come into your heart, hand them over to Jesus. 

All of the hardships in life will not endure forever. I will see my mom again in heaven, and whatever is causing you pain today will also see its end. Death, agony, and pain are not our final destination. Rather, eternal life with the Lord is our forever home, and we will never be full of sorrow again (Revelation 21:4). Take heart in knowing the Lord is with you, and He will mend the broken pieces of your heart (Psalm 147:3). 

Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/Filmstax

Vivian Bricker obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Ministry, followed by a Master of Arts with an emphasis in theology. She loves all things theology, mission work, and helping others learn about Jesus. Find more of her content at Cultivate: https://cultivatechristianity.wordpress.com/. 

Note: This is a guest post from Joe Darago, Executive Director of The Hope Effect, and a friend of mine for over 30 years.

I come from a big family—five sisters and me—filling every corner of our modest home in Northeast Ohio with laughter, noise, and life. There was never a dull moment.

My dad’s side looked a little different. He was the only son of Joseph and Teresa, raised alongside two sisters who never had children of their own. But what they may have lacked in children, they made up for in presence.

Aunt Marilyn and Aunt Liz were constants in our lives. They attended every holiday, came to many sporting events, and had a saved seat at our six graduations. They took turns investing in us—quietly and consistently.

Even when I left home for college and eventually moved out of state, the rhythm of connection continued. Birthday cards arrived on time. Calls were never forgotten. Milestone moments always brought a message or a visit. Their love was steady—minimal in flash, but immense in weight.

Maybe that’s why I’ve always been so passionate about family—a value that has shaped so many of my life choices.

About a decade ago, both Aunt Marilyn and Aunt Liz began facing health challenges. In a beautiful act of mutual care, they moved into the same home to help one another recover and reduce expenses.

One thing they didn’t reduce, however, was their belongings.

Our family has never been great at letting things go. Boxes in the sunroom held documents from our great-grandfather. Furniture from Grandma’s house crowded every corner of the living room. And the musty basement was packed with remnants from the old family store—items long unused but still quietly taking up space.

This past weekend, I traveled back to Ohio to say goodbye to Aunt Liz. As the family pastor, I had the honor of overseeing the funeral for the last of my two aunts.

The service was deeply meaningful. Friends and family came to pay their respects, share stories, and support one another through our grief. As I stood there, listening and leading, I was reminded—once again—of what truly matters in life.

No one mentioned her possessions. Not once.

But everyone spoke of how she made them feel.

How present she was.

How faithfully she encouraged others, even in quiet ways.

Of course, while no one mentioned her possessions during the service, she and my other aunt left behind plenty of material things to sort through. My sisters and I have been tasked with handling these in a way that honors both our family and her wishes.

Thankfully, Aunt Liz sensed the end was near about a year before she passed. And in that final stretch of time, she made some intentional choices—quiet but impactful—that have made all the difference.

Here are a few things she did that were incredibly helpful, and I share them in hopes they might serve others walking a similar road:

3 Things My Aunt Did That Made Saying Goodbye a Little Easier

1. She Set Up a Trust

Aunt Liz owned two homes, held several retirement accounts from past jobs, had a life insurance policy, and was a dedicated coin collector. Knowing how complicated this could become, she worked with a professional to establish a trust, appoint an executor, and clearly document who would receive what.

This one step saved my sister—who served as the executor—countless hours and headaches. More importantly, it helped us avoid confusion or conflict about finances. Money has a way of straining even the closest families. Because Liz planned ahead, we were free to grieve without tension.

2. She Simplified Where She Could

My aunt was the keeper of our family’s history and secrets. She took great pride in our heritage, always sharing stories of the past—names, places, and moments most of us would have forgotten if not for her. In many ways, she was our family cloud.

Because of that, her home was crowded with the artifacts of generations—photos, furniture, letters, and keepsakes she couldn’t bear to part with.

And yet, in her final year, something shifted. While her home still held plenty, it was clear she had begun to simplify. Closets were partially cleared. Papers were filed and labeled. Some items were gently set aside for donation.

These small acts of preparation made a significant difference. They lifted a burden from our shoulders—and served as a quiet reminder that even a little intentionality can have a lasting impact.

3. She Talked About What Matters

Perhaps the most meaningful gift Aunt Liz gave us was her willingness to talk about death—openly, honestly, and with peace. She had personal conversations with each of us, asking us to consider taking on specific responsibilities after she was gone.

One of us would care for her aging pets. Another would carry on the family Christmas tradition she had lovingly kept for years. And someone, she said, would need to pick up the mantle of family historian.

I gladly accepted that role—and in the months that followed, she began setting aside items for me as she came across them. Old photographs. Handwritten letters. Notes explaining why something mattered.

None of us enjoyed those conversations. But all of us are grateful we had them. They spared us the pain of guessing what was important to her and brought clarity to the difficult process of sorting through what was left behind.

I know I’m not alone in this experience.

Many of us have aging parents, relatives, or lifelong friends who will one day leave behind more than just memories. Along with grief, they may leave behind decisions—about possessions, finances, pets, traditions, and legacies. And it will fall to us to sort through what remains.

The question is: how can we prepare now for what we know is coming?

3 Simple, Loving Steps We Can All Take

1. Initiate the conversation.

It might feel awkward at first, but starting the conversation is a gift to everyone involved. Begin gently. Ask thoughtful questions: Is there a will? A power of attorney in case of health challenges? What are their hopes if the unexpected happens?

These are not easy topics, so approach them with compassion. The goal isn’t control—it’s understanding what matters most and honoring it.

2. Listen to the stories.

Behind every item is a memory. Often, the story is more important than the object itself. Ask why something matters. Don’t be afraid to ask open-ended questions that invite storytelling. 

Questions like: What’s the story behind this? Who gave it to you? Why did you keep it all these years? can unlock important family history.

For photos: Where was this taken? Who are these people? What happened that day?

For letters or heirlooms: Did this belong to someone else in the family? What does it remind you of?

Listening patiently, without rushing, honors the person and gives meaning to the objects left behind. 

Pro tip: write names on the backs of photos. Aunt Liz didn’t do that, and now I’m piecing together clues from extended family members.

3. Don’t wait to share your feelings at the funeral.

At my aunt’s service, I invited others to speak. The room filled with beautiful memories and heartfelt words. But as I listened, I couldn’t help but wonder—had Liz heard these things while she was still alive?

Don’t wait. Tell your loved ones what they mean to you now. Say the words. Let them hear your gratitude, your admiration, and your love while they’re still here to receive it.

Minimalism isn’t just about letting go of stuff. It’s about living with purpose and preparing with love. The intentional steps Aunt Liz took in her final year didn’t just ease our burden—they reminded us of what really matters.

May we all be brave enough to start the conversation, kind enough to preserve the stories, and wise enough to speak our love while there’s still time.

***

Joe Darago has served as the Executive Director of The Hope Effect since its founding in 2015. He and his Christie live in Edmond OK where they enjoy parenting their four adult children and grandparenting two + one on the way. He is passionate about changing the way the world cares for orphans… because every child deserves a family.

The year is 1937. Elias Canetti (July 25, 1905–August 14, 1994) — Bulgarian, Jewish, living in Austria as the Nazis are rising to power — has just lost his mother; his mother, whose bottomless love had nurtured the talent that would win him the Nobel Prize in his seventies; his mother, who had raised him alone after his father’s death when Elias was seven (the kind of “wound that turns into a lung through which you breathe,” he would later reflect).

Having left chemistry to study philosophy, trading the science of life for the art of learning to die, Canetti, aged thirty-two, decides to write a book “against” death, defying it without denying it, this shadow of life that is also its spark, the very thing that makes it shimmer with aliveness. He would work on it for the next half century until his own death, filling two thousand pages with reflections and aphorisms posthumously distilled into The Book Against Death (public library).

Perhaps Canetti’s reckoning with death is so virtuosic in articulating the potency and poignancy of life because it keeps inverting the lens from the microscopic to the telescopic and back again as he mourns his mother and mourns the world. Everything is suddenly personal, his suffering a fractal of the suffering and everyone else’s suffering a mirror image of his own.

Coming to feel that “with every destroyed city a piece of his own life falls away,” he searches for the borders of compassion and finds none:

Am I Nuremberg? Am I Munich? I am every building in which children sleep. I am every open square across which feet scurry.

And yet alongside this overwhelming brokenness, so universal and therefore so intimate, is also a greater wholeness that he is, as all visionaries are, able to glimpse through the ruins:

Above the shattered world there stretches a pure blue heaven, which continues to hold it together.

It is this blue, this color of longing for life, that saturates the meaning of life amid the darkness of death. Three years into the war, he vows:

Today I decided that I will record thoughts against death as they occur to me, without any kind of structure and without submitting them to any tyrannical plan. I cannot let this war pass without hammering out a weapon within my heart that will conquer death.

Not everyone, not even the great minds, had Canetti’s defiance. “We must love one another or die,” W.H. Auden had entreated humanity in one of the greatest poems ever written as the war was breaking out, and then, in what may be the most poignant one-word revision in the history of literature and one of the saddest in the history of the human spirit, he had rewritten that epitaphic last line in the wake of the war: “We must love one another and die.” While Auden was ceding his optimism, Muriel Rukeyser — as great a poet and a greater spirit — was celebrating a different vision of life beyond notions of triumph and defeat in one of the greatest books ever written: “All the effort, all the loneliness and death, the thin and blazing threads of reason, the spill of blessing, the passion behind these silences — all the invention turns to one end: the fertilizing of the moment, so that there may be more life.”

Canetti shares her lens on the political, but for him it is polished with the most deeply personal. In an entry from June 1942, he writes:

Five years ago today my mother died. Since then my world has turned inside out. To me it is as if it happened just yesterday. Have I really lived five years, and she knows nothing of it? I want to undo each screw of her coffin’s lid with my lips and haul her out. I know that she is dead. I know that she has rotted away. But I can never accept it as true.

[…]

Where is her shadow? Where is her fury? I will loan her my breath. She should walk on my own two legs.

Echoing Ernest Hemingway (“No one you love is ever dead,” he had written in a stirring letter of consolation to a bereaved friend) and echoing Emily Dickinson (“Each that we lose takes part of us / A crescent still abides / Which like the moon, some turbid night, / Is summoned by the tides,” she had written in her reckoning with love and loss upon her own mother’s death), Canetti contemplates the immortality of love in the living:

The souls of the dead are in others, namely those left behind… Only the dead have lost one another completely.

In the prime of his life, he is already facing the losses that loom over anyone who loves:

I want anything to do with fewer and fewer people, mainly so that I can never get over the pain of losing them.

Not knowing that in the decades ahead he would lose the love of his life, marry again and lose her too, lose his younger brother, lose a retinue of friends — some to mass murder, some to suicide, some to the entropy that will take us all if we are lucky enough to grow old — he writes from the fortunate platform of his healthy thirties:

We carry the most important thing around inside ourselves for forty or fifty years before we risk articulating it. Therefore there is no way to measure all that is lost with those who die too early. Everyone dies early.

And yet his mother’s death is precisely what awakened Canetti to life — his own life and the life of the world. (“Death is our friend,” Rilke had written when Canetti was a teenager, “precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love.”) Beneath it all pulsates his unflinching intimacy with the elemental reality of living:

We do not die of sadness — out of sadness we live on.

At the crux of Canetti’s disquisition on the menace and meaning of death is a passionate inquiry into what it means to be alive. A decade before Edward Abbey contemplated how to live and how (not) to die and a decade after Simone de Beauvoir composed her resolutions for a life worth living, Canetti itemizes the priorities of a good life:

To live at least long enough to know all human customs and events; to retrieve all of life that has passed, since we are denied that which will come; to pull yourself together before you disappear; to be worthy of your own birth; to think of the sacrifices made at the expense of others’ every breath; to not glorify suffering, even though you are alive because of it; to only keep for yourself that which cannot be given away until it is ripe for others and hands itself on; to hate every person’s death as if it were your own, and to at last be at peace with everything, but never with death.

Complement these passages from The Book Against Death with a heron’s antidote to death, then revisit Mary Oliver on how to live with maximum aliveness, Henry Miller on the measure of a life well lived, and Alan Lightman on what happens when we die.

“If you have ever followed a rainbow to its end, it leads you to the ground on which you are standing.” ~Alan Cohen

There’s nothing more exhilarating than riding in a Jeep through masses of standing water. With each push forward, my friend Angela expertly maneuvered through enormous puddles, sending fountain-like arcs of aquatic glory past my passenger-side window.

This was joy to me.

It was a welcome reprieve considering the past couple of years had unraveled in ways I never saw coming. In fact, this watery wonder, cruising through the quaint streets of the beloved beach island I called home, was a rare outing for me.

I wouldn’t call myself a shut-in exactly, but if you had spotted me out and about in recent months, you might have likened it to a unicorn sighting—rare and a shock to the system. Rare, because leaving my house required something other than pajamas. Shocking, because it meant I had somehow rallied after a morning of ugly crying.

These days, the ugly cries came less frequently, but getting out the door still required careful planning and a healthy dose of positive self-talk. Angela, sensing all I had been through, didn’t attempt to fill the space between us with mindless chatter. She let the air breathe, allowing our hearts to settle into a comforting silence.

And wouldn’t you know it? In that silence, as we rolled forward over the waterlogged road, a rainbow appeared.

It was magnificent. A full curve stretching across the sky, untouched by a single cloud. We both took it in, wordless at first, until Angela finally spoke the thought we were both holding:

“This has to mean brighter days are ahead.”

I nodded, hoping with everything in me that she was right. Not just for our community, which had been pummeled by weeks of relentless storms, but selfishly, for me. I needed this to mean something. The universe wouldn’t place something so breathtaking in my path if life wasn’t about to shift in a meaningful way… right?

At that moment, although I wasn’t ready for it, a tiny doorway of hope cracked open in my heart.

Angela pulled into my driveway, gave me one of those deep, soulful hugs she’s known for, and I stepped onto the sand-packed pavers, feeling something I hadn’t felt in a long time: the possibility of relief.

But relief never came.

The next morning, I woke up expecting transformation. I brushed my teeth, looked in the mirror, and waited for the shift. And then it hit me. Nothing had changed.

Worse yet, everything that had once shattered me remained intact, as if locked in a forgotten pause. My father was gone—forever. And instead of the clarity or closure I had hoped for, I was left with the unsettling reality that some pieces of life can never be fully mended.

By some unknown force of grace, the years, months, and weeks leading up to our last conversations allowed them to be light, even warm. A reminder that the love we shared, though imperfect, continued to move freely in both directions. And still, his sudden departure sent shockwaves through my family, shifting fault lines in ways I couldn’t control. Unable to bear it, like a sea turtle stunned motionless after a sudden freeze warning, I collapsed inward and began my retreat from the external world.

Then, there was my future looming over me, a blank slate waiting to be filled. My identity had been tethered to raising my boys, but soon, my nest would be empty.

I had no roadmap for what came next. I had tried to carve out a new path through writing and building a mindful and self-compassionate community, but since my father’s death, that dream and the energy for it had faded.

My reflection met my gaze, uncertain and hesitant. Fifty years etched into my skin, fine lines tracing both laughter and worry, a strip of silver roots marking the passage of time, yet I felt invisible in a world that had seemingly moved on.

What now, rainbow? What now?

And beyond the grief, beyond the exhaustion, there was something else.

Anger.

How dare that rainbow give me hope? How dare it let me believe, even for a moment, that things were about to get better? I felt tricked, betrayed by my own willingness to believe in something beyond my suffering.

But as I spiraled deeper into my chasm of despair, something else took shape on the edges of my soul. A truth so simple, so unshaken by my sorrow, that it stopped me in my tracks.

I finally learned the truth about rainbows.

Rainbows do not exist to change our lives. They do not come with promises or guarantees. They are not here to tell us whether things will get better or stay the same.

A rainbow’s only purpose is to illuminate what already exists. To take the ordinary and, for a fleeting moment, drench it in color. It does not erase the rain, nor does it undo the storm. But it shifts our perception. It allows us to see the world, and ourselves, in a way that feels momentarily brighter.

And maybe, just maybe, that is enough.

Maybe healing is not about waiting for life to change but about learning to be with life exactly as it is. Maybe it’s about making space for the full spectrum of our emotions—grief and wonder, despair and hope, pain and beauty—without needing to force one away to make room for the other.

Maybe the rainbow was never a promise of transformation. Maybe it was simply an invitation to see my life, my grief, and even myself through a different lens.

And so, instead of cursing the rainbow for failing to fix me, I let it teach me something else.

That I am still here.

That even in grief, I can experience awe.

That even in uncertainty, wonder can still find me.

That even in the hardest moments, light doesn’t disappear. It refracts, scattering in ways I might not have expected but still can choose to see.

And maybe, just maybe, hope isn’t about believing something external will come along to save us. Maybe hope is simply the courage to keep going, even when we don’t yet see the path ahead.

So, I will keep going.

Not because I know what’s next.

Not because I believe everything will suddenly fall into place.

But because there is still light in this world. Light that is beautiful, redemptive, and multi-faceted, and I want to keep searching for it.

Even in the rain.

Even in the in-between.

Even in me.

About Diana DeVaul

Diana DeVaul, MSW, is a writer and seeker who believes in the healing power of shared truth. While moving through her own season of uncertainty, she offers honest and compassionate words to anyone struggling to find steady ground. Read more at dianadevaul.com.

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