The Dance Between Acceptance and Resistance

They say a picture says a thousand words, and I was living that again today.

As I sat down at my desk, my eyes landed on a picture of Kyle and me, a tender moment frozen in time that now holds everything.

We were on his Make-A-Wish trip, and he was becoming too sick to stay for the whole week. We decided as a family to take him to the ocean before flying home to the hospital. As we brought him closer to the water, he just wanted to be held and comforted. He wanted to be snuggled up in his favorite blanket, and playing was not of any interest to him. In my heart, I knew what was happening even if I didn't want it to be true. I was watching it happen all week as he became more fatigued and didn't want to go on any outings. My son was starting to get quieter; he was beginning to withdraw from this world. This would be his only time seeing the ocean, and I knew that in my soul as I carried him near the waves. I knew my son was dying, and I knew there was no turning back the clock. I noticed the changes long before I was ready to accept what they meant, and acceptance kept asking me back again and again.

The instant I looked at the picture of us from 22 years ago, I felt the familiar ache of that knowing, and of missing him. At the same time, my heart filled with a deep knowing that his life still carries meaning and purpose into mine. We still have more to do together. That moment led me into contemplation about acceptance, how it moves and shifts like breath itself. The dance between acceptance and resistance is as natural as breathing.

Both are real, yet both are misunderstood.

We loved so many things about who Kyle was and is, but I could never have known his true purpose until I had to let him go. What he came here to do, who he came here to be for our family, continues to unfold in ways that words can’t capture. As our family has grown, he’s remained, reaching through time, through love, and with his presence. Even as I’ve come to know and understand this, it’s still something I meet again and again.

Why do I meet it? Because acceptance isn’t a single meeting with reality, it’s an ongoing conversation with what is. If I’m being honest, it’s not a place I’ve arrived. It’s a landscape I keep learning to navigate, aspects I continue to integrate. Some days I am sure-footed, on steady ground; other days I have to relearn how to walk it, how to find direction again when the ground shifts beneath me.

Acceptance doesn’t happen all at once.

There are the smaller, ongoing acceptances that follow:

~accepting all the daily moments and experiences he should have been here for.

~accepting the way joy and sorrow now live side by side.

~accepting that love still asks me to keep living fully.

Acceptance, I’ve learned, keeps unfolding over the years.

Sometimes it looks like a daily prayer whispered through tears.

Other times, it’s a wave of gratitude moving through me in a moment of grace, my heart and hands reaching into the mystery of what remains.

There is diversity in belief across cultures, kinships, and individuals, reminding us that there is no right or wrong way to grieve. I’ve come to see that this diversity offers nourishment along the way. It’s how wisdom is shared, and healing takes root.

It hasn’t been one source of understanding, but a collective of many. The love of family, the kindness of friends, and the presence of those who have shown up along the way. It’s through all of these perspectives and voices that I’ve found the capacity to hold the complexities of grief, to trust that my way has evolved as it should, and that it adds meaning to the collective because there is more than one way to live with loss.

If we listen, if we can sit with the pain, ours or another’s, we make room for the wholeness of what is present and what is not yet known. We bear witness not to fix it, but to behold what only Love can bring, because Love has many faces and one of them is Grief.

May we also remember our young grievers, the children who feel loss deeply but are often forgotten. They, too, need space to move through grief as a natural part of life.

What they need changes as they grow:

For the youngest, safety and honesty in asking questions.

For older children, permission to express and stay connected to the one they miss.

For teens, understanding without judgment as they find their own language for loss.

Each child needs to know that love and sorrow can exist side by side, that both are welcome, and that their way of grieving, whatever it looks like, is enough.

Because in remembering, in listening, and in holding space for one another, we find the quiet work of making meaning and the resilience that allows love to shape us. And yet, we also have to honor that sometimes remembering is painful. And that’s okay.

There is no single pace, no right way through. Only the gentle permission to meet this work when we can, and to let grace hold the rest until we’re ready.

But if the ache begins to feel too heavy to carry alone, may we have the courage to reach for support. Healing asks for spaciousness, but it also asks for connection. Be gentle with yourself and with others. There is no way around, only through. Every step is courageous in its own way, and none of them need to be retraced.

“Transformation exists at every threshold; it is as present in the dark as it is in the light.” Heidi

With Love~