Finding Purpose After Loss, Make it Make Sense!

One of the worst parts about grief is that we’re never going to be able to get a definitive answer to the question “Why?”. Why was our loved one taken from us, perhaps all too early or at a young age? Why did this experience happen to -me-? We struggle to find some sense of meaning and purpose in the midst of a loss that often feels unreal and insurmountable to us. This person was here, and now they’re not. Why? Make it make sense. These are words or sentiments spoken, cried, or screamed into the universe after the death of a loved one.

In a previous blog post I touched on this idea of us becoming a different person after we lose a loved one and it’s true. You can never again be the person you were before they died, be it a spouse, a child, a parent, a friend or some other important person in your life. So the thing many people don’t realize is that we aren’t just mourning the person who died, but also the person we were that we can never be again. Now that doesn’t mean we can’t embrace this new person we are and live a hopeful and joy filled life. But it does mean that we have work ahead of us and one of the biggest tasks within that work is finding some sense of meaning or purpose…finding a way to make it make sense. I like to explain it as taking something dark and painful, and turning it into good to light the way to a better tomorrow.

So how do we find this sense of purpose? Well, we lean into what we love, what gives us life and what feeds us. Sometimes purpose is as simple as finding new ways to honor the person you lost. For me, learning about grief and leveraging my education and experience to help walk with others in their grief became a life mission. Trust me, your purpose now versus what your purpose might have been before your loss can be night and day different.

I’ll be honest, before I became a widow, funerals and the words death and grief both disgusted and terrified me. I did what many people do and avoided both like the plague! I didn’t want to catch whatever grief bug other people had and I certainly didn’t want to deal with the death of someone close. Naively I thought it couldn’t possibly be something I would have to face, until I did have to face it. Inevitably we all do.

And now death and grief are part of my everyday life. I’ve worked for funeral homes and hospices and the girl who was once afraid of death suddenly found herself surrounded by it. And not only was I surrounded, but I felt some strange sense of peace and understanding because I’d lived it. It sounds weird but I can honestly say I feel more fulfilled now than ever before. But that’s just me. I’m not saying go find the nearest funeral home and jump into the death and grief care industry. Just because I did it doesn’t mean it’s right for you. We all have a level of weird and this just seems to be my chosen strain of weirdness.

Maybe purpose for you takes on the form of volunteering for a cause that was important to you, your deceased loved one, or even both of you. There are a million ways in which to volunteer from assisting at your local humane society, to getting involved in political and governmental causes. I’ll elaborate on Volunteering as a healing strategy in a later post. Just understand that this is an option to continue to feel connected to your loved one by way of giving back to your community.

Maybe purpose comes in the form of a career change. Maybe this is the time for you to help yourself heal by gaining more education or a new skill set.

Maybe your purpose is simply to continue to honor the person you lost. This can be as elaborate as creating a nonprofit or a scholarship based on them and their experience or simply setting aside time every week to go sit in a place you both loved to go. This can even be ceremonial in that you go to a particular stream once a month and place a flower in it, watching the flower drift lazily along the water as you update your person on what you’ve been doing and how you miss them.

Engaging in self-care is also a form of new or renewed purpose. I can honestly say that as my husband’s caregiver I focused all my time, love and energy on Keith and left little to none for myself. So, if that experience sounds familiar, maybe it is time for you to do the things you’ve been wanting to do, and care for yourself in ways that weren’t as important then, but should be now. Maybe that’s something simple like a glass of wine and a bath once a week or a good book you’ve been meaning to read. Or maybe it’s as involved as getting that surgery you’ve been putting off or trying to get healthy.

The point I’m trying to make is that it may not feel like it right now, but you will be able to pull some sense of purpose and meaning from your experience. And it’s ok for that to be hard. Damn hard. It’s ok to falter or fail because that’s how we learn. We are human beings and there’s so much to learn in falling and having to get back up. Just make sure in the process of trying to find your purpose, that you give yourself the grace to try things that may or may not work out. And you may not believe in yourself but I do. You’ve got this!

Forest Path to purpose