Still Showing Up

Casseroles stop coming. Condolence cards slow to a trickle. By year two, the phone stops ringing entirely. Meanwhile, grief settles in for the long haul, and someone you care about faces their hardest season. Alone.

In the beginning, as followers of Jesus, we rally to the grieving extremely well. We flood in with meals, flowers, and promises to be there. Then life pulls us back into our routines. We assume healing follows a neat timeline. It’s easy for us to move on while grief reshapes someone else’s entire world.

Pete Scazzero, author of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, teaches us that grief never disappears. It shifts, softens in places, and deepens in others. Above all, it transforms the lives it touches. Our role as friends is not to erase their grief but to walk with them as it changes them.

Showing up after grief means choosing presence over programs. Groups and classes serve their purpose. But can they replace relationships? Real support looks different from everyone’s expectations, so:

Send a text on a Tuesday that says “thinking of you” with no expectation of response.

Invite them to join you for ordinary errands like grocery shopping or picking up dry cleaning.

Remember the birthday of the person they lost and acknowledge it.

Ask them, “How are you doing with your grief today?” instead of “How are you doing?”

Sit in silence when words feel empty.

Three years later, Tisha shows up. Coffee in hand. Everyone else stops asking, but she doesn’t. Helen never forgets.

Active listening creates space for healing. Listen with patience, allowing their story to unfold naturally. Listen with curiosity rather than judgment. Listen while embracing silence as sacred ground. This active listening honors their journey and respects that healing follows multiple seasons, and certainly not on our timeline.

Grief often opens new places of tenderness in people, like Helen. Compassion, wisdom, and depth grow from loss. When we see those gifts emerging, we can name them and bless them. By doing so, we affirm new life rising from ashes, even as memory remains sacred.

The greatest gift we give someone years after grief is our presence. Not answers. Not fixes. Just presence. Pete Scazzero reminds us that we cannot leap from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. Resurrection comes only after loss finds honor.

Someone’s name just came to mind, didn’t it? Text them today. Three words: “Thinking of you.” Hit send. That’s how Tisha started. That’s how resurrection begins.

#ShowingUpAfterLoss #GriefDoesntEndAtTheFuneral #LongTermSupport #PresenceNotPrograms #WalkingThroughGrief