What Does It Mean to Find Meaning?
After my sister died two years ago, absolutely nothing made sense to me. My world was completely out of order. Life felt brutal and unfair. The notion that everything happens for a reason felt like a cruel and unnecessary joke.
I remember looking at so much grief content from those who had found meaning in and from their losses. Books, articles, and social media posts all seemed to suggest that there might be something beautiful in my grief and that I could transform my loss into something meaningful.
I wanted nothing of it. And when I say I wanted nothing of it, I don’t mean, “Oh, that’s not for me.” What I mean – and what I was feeling – is, “You can take your meaning and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.”
I wasn’t having it. At all.
For me at that time, finding meaning meant finding a reason for my sister’s death. It meant feeling that I could be at more peace with my loss if I could just find something good in it. It meant feeling pressure to take my pain and alchemize it into something beautiful.
For many, these perspectives on finding meaning are a true source of peace and comfort. If that is true for you, then I’m not here to take that away. I want you to hold onto those perspectives and to treasure them.
But for me – and I think this is true for many – these perspectives didn’t resonate, and sometimes they even made me furious. I wasn’t interested in finding a silver lining in something that felt so brutally painful and tragic.
It took me a long while to come to a place where finding meaning after loss didn’t mean finding meaning in my sister’s death. For me, finding meaning came to mean something else entirely.
Influenced by the work of professionals like Megan Devine, David Kessler, and Dr. Robert Neimeyer, I started to think about meaning after loss differently.
Instead of asking myself, “Where’s the meaning in this loss?,” I started asking myself, “Given what I cannot change, what does it mean for me to live a beautiful life?”
That’s where the idea of meaning after loss started to resonate and open up for me. That question is the one that started me down the path of meaning-making.
Creating a beautiful life after my sister’s death doesn’t ask me to find a reason. It doesn’t ask me to make sense out of the nonsensical. It doesn’t even ask me to believe that the world is fair or that good can come out of any circumstance.
It simply asks me, “Given what I cannot change, what does it mean for me to live a beautiful life?,” and it calls me to answer in ways like this: Living a beautiful life means loving more. It means dance parties with my kids and watermelon juice running down my arms and choosing to snuggle just a little bit longer. It means trusting that my Seester’s heart is forever entwined with mine. It means staying connected to what I know is true even in the face of things I can’t control.
For me, this is all beautiful and resonant and hopeful. It is meaningful and true. And it has nothing at all to do with making sense of my sister’s death or feeling the pressure to turn it into something good.
Making meaning is going to look and feel different for everyone. Whatever it means for you is right. But if you find yourself struggling with what it means to find meaning after loss, I hope this offers you a different way to think about meaning.
And if the idea of meaning doesn't resonate at all, I get that too. I really do.
Wherever your search for meaning takes you, I encourage you to pay attention to the questions you’re asking yourself just as much as you’re looking for answers. What question feels like the right and true one to softly guide you down the path to finding meaning after loss?
As always, take gentle care of yourself.
