Stop Sleeping on the Relationship That Needs Repair
What Grief Taught Me About Love
I didn’t expect it to hit me like that
Recently, I found out a former client of mine had passed away unexpectedly; I felt the familiar sting of grief press into my chest. I thought about his wife. His daughters. And I felt this wave of sadness I couldn’t shake—because something in me recognized the pain.
Grief has a way of folding time.
And in that moment, I was no longer the coach—I was the daughter again.
The daughter who lost her mom in the same sudden, gut-wrenching way.
Life is fragile
I’ve never walked through the kind of grief his wife is facing—losing a partner after decades of life together.
But I have known the kind of loss that rearranges your insides. The kind that shows up in ordinary moments when you least expect it. The kind that leaves you aching for one more day, one more conversation, one more chance to say what really mattered.
It reminded me of how fragile this all is.
How much we take for granted.
How easy it is to wait on the apology, the phone call, the effort to repair.
How we believe somewhere deep down that we still have time.
But we don’t always.
The truth is pain opens us—if we let it.
It softens our judgments.
It slows our reactions.
It deepens our empathy.
And when you’ve been through a certain kind of heartbreak, you can feel it in someone else without needing the backstory. That’s what happened here.
It wasn’t just sadness. It was recognition.
And with that recognition comes an invitation:
To stop holding off on love.
To stop tolerating the version of connection that just gets us through.
To stop assuming the window for healing will always be open.
Because it won’t be.
Don’t wait to love
So if you’re reading this right now and there’s a relationship in your life that feels unfinished, unspoken, or untended—don’t wait.
Whether it’s your partner, your sister, your dad, your friend…
Say the hard thing.
Soften the edge.
Make the repair.
Not because it’s urgent. But because it’s precious.
Life is short. And love is what makes it worth it.
♥️
Lilly