Grief. What a heavy word if there ever was one. These days, we feel like everyone is grieving even if it’s not in the traditional sense. In the wake of the passing of monumental individuals who demanded and created change on the foundation of love, respect, equality, and justice, we thought we would take a moment to touch on the heaviness of grieving.
We found ourselves in a conversation last week about our grandfather. He passed over two decades ago but his impact on our lives is still felt to this day. Through tears and aching hearts, we speculated about how our lives would be different if he was still here with us and a lot of things probably would have been easier. But by the end of the conversation, we knew that if he had lived longer we would not be who we are today.
Grieving is not restricted to just the loss of someone important and influential in our lives. Grieving comes when we lose what we thought once was or what could have been. With our new pandemic “normalcy,” there is a lot of grieving for our old lives and how “good” it once was (things might not have necessarily been good, but it was probably better than it is now).
The process of grieving highlights the value of something now gone. A relationship, a lifestyle, a perceived advantage. It’s hard to miss what you haven’t yet lost. When we are in the process of grieving, it is then we realize the true value of what we once had.
Grieving is hard. It’s a process. It takes time. You cannot rush it. Sitting in the heaviness and discomfort of our grief is important for us to make the changes to shift, grow, and realign our values. It allows us to see our lives right now even with painful awareness of the dreams we have lost.
We miss our grandfather everyday, but working through our grief shows us that we are here today… here right now writing this newsletter for YOU… because he gave us this opportunity to achieve a different dream. A dream we would have never envisioned for ourselves.
It's humbling to accept how little control we have over our lives. Our power lies in our decision to show up and move forward.
Through our own healing journeys, we have experienced the fear of discovering something new... a new way of living or a new sense of self. It sometimes left us second guessing if we even wanted to go down that path.
But we are here to say that you can grieve the past, fear the unwritten future, and still have the courage to take that next baby step towards becoming a different person… the person who is more amazing than you could have planned or envisioned.
With love,
Ming-Wai and Ming-Cee
(co-founders of a company we never planned to start, but so grateful everyday that we were open to the opportunity, faced our fears, and did it)