Loss, Grief, and the Space Between

Week 14, 2025

Photo by Aurora K on Unsplash

ℱ𝓇𝓸𝓂 𝓂𝓎 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓉 𝓉𝑜 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓈... 🫶💌☕

This week, I've been holding onto some heavy thoughts, and I felt it was important to share them with you. It's a bit different from my usual letters, and I’ll admit, it’s been hard to find glimmers of light in this one. But this is an honest reflection of where my mind's been at. As always, I’ll offer a moment to pause, reflect, and imagine—a gentle shift to guide us through—and I’ll leave you with a poem to ponder and revisit.

A friend of mine—someone I used to work with—lost her home in a fire last Tuesday, as did her next door neighbours (it was a semi-detached). My heart broke for her and her family. My husband also used to work with her husband and her children are around the same age as my youngest. I just can’t begin to imagine what they’re going through.

It’s one of those moments that jolts you awake, reminding you how quickly life can change in an instant and that none of us have any control over it. I felt the same way when my mum was air ambulanced, one minute she was fine and the next she wasn’t. It just brings everything into perspective, doesn’t it?

Let’s pause for a moment.
Close your eyes and imagine your own home,
your safe place.
Feel that sense of comfort,
of familiarity.
Let yourself really experience
what it means to have that peace.

I’ve had my own experiences with fire—three times, actually. Each of them stays with me in different ways.

The first fire happened in the hospital accommodation I lived in when I was doing my nursing training. Unfortunately, I was in the shower when the fire broke out. I had to quickly throw on my pyjamas and run outside in the middle of a March blizzard. Thankfully, the fire was confined to a kitchen on the other side of the building from my room, but it still shook me.

The second time was much scarier. It was 1 a.m., and we were all fast asleep. The fireman banged on all the doors throughout the building, and we had to evacuate. I remember feeling sick to my stomach as I didn’t have contents insurance or a penny to my name back then. I stood outside in the rain, holding my 4-year-old, watching the flames consume the flat beneath us, praying it wouldn’t spread to our one. Thankfully they caught it in time and the flat on fire was the only one affected.

The third time was at my childhood family home. Though I wasn’t living there anymore, my husband and I had a lot of our things still stored there. My mum called to tell me she was sitting outside in the car with my dad and their upstairs elderly neighbour, not knowing what they would return to. Thankfully, their side of the semi-detached was saved, although they have been told that the joining walls are so weak now that they wouldn’t survive another fire.

Take a moment to reflect.
Feel into past moments of uncertainty.
Of not knowing what’s next.
How does that feel in your body?
Take a moment to sit with that feeling.

I feel it’s important to mention here that the loss of pets in circumstances like this can be just as painful as losing a human loved one. It's hard to express how often we minimise the emotional impact of such losses by saying, 'At least no one was hurt.' In doing so, we sometimes fail to give ourselves the space to truly grieve what has been lost.

Overall, I’ve been left thinking about how life can be so fragile. In the blink of an eye, everything can change. It’s so easy to take life for granted, to assume things will stay as they are. But what I’ve learned through my own experiences, is that there’s so much power in resilience, even in the toughest moments.

It’s so easy to want to rush past these difficult emotions, to try to push them away, but I’d like to remind you that it’s okay to feel all of it. It’s okay to feel unsettled, to feel overwhelmed, or even to feel lost. These feelings don’t make you weak; they make you human.

There’s no “right” way to process grief or fear. Be gentle with yourself as you experience those emotions.

Imagine for a moment,
taking that first step toward healing.
What does it feel like to move forward,
even when the path is uncertain?
Hold that thought close for a moment.

Fire doesn’t just burn physical things; the aftermath changes us. And this can be said for many moments where we have faced uncertainty. We don’t always realise the power we have to heal, to rebuild, to find strength in ways we didn’t know were possible.

That’s why I wanted to share this poem with you, something I wrote to reflect on the quiet strength we all carry, even in the most difficult times.

The Aftermath

In the ashes, we find our feet,
Not as we were, but as we are—
Broken, yes, but still complete.
We rise, though bruised, though scarred.

The flames may claim what once we held,
But in their wake, we learn to breathe.
We’re more than loss, more than the shell,
We’re the quiet after, where we grieve.

Take a moment to breathe that in.
Feel the words settle in your heart.
The space between the flames and the rebirth.
That space is where healing begins.

Sometimes, it's the small things that really make a difference. Like taking a moment to check in with yourself and ask, "What do I need right now?" It could be as simple as taking a deep breath or resting your hand on your heart. These little acts can be the first step in coming back to yourself. And remember, you don’t have to carry it all at once.

You don’t have to rush through pain or healing. It’s okay to sit with it, to feel what comes up, and to take your time in moving through it. You don’t need to have everything figured out right away.

Let’s just be here, together, one breath at a time.

𝒲𝒾𝓉𝒽 𝒢𝓇𝒶𝓉𝒾𝓉𝓊𝒹𝑒,

🙏 𝒟𝒶𝓃𝒶 𝓍𝑜