Last night, I looked in the mirror.
At first, I saw a woman who looked like she had aged ten years in the months after her husband died. I noticed every wrinkle, every soft line around my eyes, and the pretty grey hairs beginning to take hold. And I judged her.

Hard.

My first thought was, Well… face yoga, that will help.

I reached for lotion. I smoothed back my hair. I adjusted myself like somehow I could rearrange the grief out of my features.

Then I stepped back.

And something shifted.
I didn’t just notice the aging. I noticed her.

This woman staring back at me… this woman who has carried love and loss, who has walked through fire and stayed standing even when she didn’t want to.
I stared at her for a long time, and the tears came before I could stop them.

Because in that moment, I knew…Lew wasn’t here anymore to tell me I was beautiful.
He wasn’t here to laugh with me about my grey hairs or remind me that my aging face was still his favorite. He wasn’t here to reassure me that I was not the harsh words I was saying to myself.

So I looked deeper still.
And suddenly, I saw a woman who has faced more than most will ever know. I saw the lines around my eyes not as aging, but as evidence. Of laughter, our laughter. Of anguish, deep anguish. Of love that lived loudly. Of nights I didn’t think I’d make it through. Of mornings I got up anyway.

Watching your love die is one of the most tragic, sacred moments a human heart can ever experience. It changes you. And grief …in its strange, unwelcome way…. reveals things about us we never knew were there.

As I studied her face, this woman who is somehow both wounded and wise, she whispered something softly to me.
She told me don’t be so hard on you my love, beauty.. like yours… is deeper than anything we can see in a mirror.

Widows carry a kind of beauty the world doesn’t talk about. A beauty carved by love, reshaped by loss, and held together by strength we never asked to have.

We can see an aging woman…
Or we can choose to see a woman who has stood tall in the middle of the hardest thing she will ever walk with: grief.

This is why I named this community Grief and Me.
Because grief isn’t me.
It’s with me.
It is not all that I am… and it is not all that you are.
But I had to choose that.
I had to decide:
Would my grief define me, or walk beside me?

And then I had to ask myself the hardest, most honest question of all:
How would Lew want me to carry this?
I can still hear his answer so clearly:
“Sevey’s never quit.”
That was his motto. For our family. For our life, as much as it annoyed our kids growing up, (I can see them as kids with gritted teeth repeat the phrase when dad would say “What’s our motto”. They’d reluctantly say “Sevey’s Never quit” … that phrase has stuck with them even in their grief.

So last night, as I stood there with tears running down my face, I thanked this woman in the mirror.
I thanked her for not breaking completely.
I thanked her for making mistakes and learning things she never wanted to learn alone.
I thanked her for waking up every day and choosing love over destruction.
I thanked her for letting grief walk with her, but not allowing it to swallow her up whole.
I was amazed by her…. by me…in a way I hadn’t expected.

And my dear friend… if you’re wondering how in the hell you’re going to make it without him… I know.

I know.

But you will.
Take a long, deep look at yourself in the mirror.
Really see her.
And tell her… through your tears if you have to… how truly beautiful she is.

Because you are.
You truly, fiercely, undeniably are.

May today you see that you are worth investing in and even in your sorrow you will find a sense of your own strength in this place we call grief.

We will be meeting this Thursday 3PM PST time zone.