I dedicated this episode to Luke. To my dad. To Enrique. And to my mom — who has shown me more about how to carry loss than anyone I have ever known.
This one was the hardest to record. And the most necessary.
Grief is one of the things we carry the longest and talk about the least.
We move through it quietly. We learn early to tuck it away so life can keep going. So that the people around us don't have to worry. So that we don't become a burden with something that has no clear end date.
And somewhere along the way — we start to believe that keeping going means we are okay.
It doesn't.
Grief just changes shape.
I lost my brother Luke when I was 13. He was 16. A car accident on a road trip to visit our oldest brother at college.
Luke was quiet in a family that was loud. He had a huge smile that took over his whole face. He didn't need to be the center of the room. He was happy to sit beside you — to be present, to show up in whatever way you needed without making it about himself.
And here is the thing I love most about him. Every single one of us siblings felt like we were his favorite. Like the relationship we had with Luke was the special one.
What a gift that is. To make every person around you feel seen and chosen and loved.
I see Luke in my youngest son Landon. That same quiet presence. That same way of loving his siblings — steadily, without needing to be the center.
When I see that in Landon I feel two things at once. A fullness. And an ache.
I want to say something honest about grief and memory.
I have so much more of my life without my brother than with him. And if I am being truthful — I am forgetting him. Not deliberately. Not willingly. But the details that used to be sharp have softened over time.
And there is a grief inside that grief — a mourning for the fading itself. The fear that forgetting means you loved less. That the distance of time is a kind of betrayal.
It isn't. But it feels like it sometimes.
My dad was wonderful. Warm, caring, funny — a huge laugh and a huge personality. The kind of man who gave you the shirt off his own back without a second thought.
What made loving him complicated was not him. It was his illness. Bipolar disorder before it was properly understood meant you never quite knew which version of him was coming through the door.
But my dad made a quiet powerful choice. Whatever he had carried from his own complicated childhood — he chose to give us something different. He broke a cycle. For me. For my siblings. For our children.
And I carry that with me. Mostly I am grateful. For the man he was. For the choice he made. For the father he chose to be.
And then there is Enrique.
My father-in-law. Johnny's dad. His best friend. He has been in my life since I turned 15.
We lost him unexpectedly less than a year ago. And grief that is still this fresh — this raw — has a different texture than the losses I have carried for decades. It catches you in the ordinary moments. A song. A meal. A laugh that sounds like his.
Enrique loved our whole family in the purest most uncomplicated form. No conditions. No complexity. Just love.
For Johnny — who lost not just his father but his closest friend. For our children — who lost a grandfather who loved them with his whole heart. For me — who had the privilege of being loved by him as a daughter since I was a teenager.
We miss him every day. And we are so deeply grateful that we had him every day that we did.
My mom is the strongest woman I have ever known.
She has mourned her son Luke. My dad. Her second husband. Her parents. She has carried loss after loss after loss — and she has done it with faith and grace and love and a strength that I am still in awe of.
Recently we were in New York watching Hamilton on Broadway. And in the show a father loses his son. I looked over at my mom. She was crying quietly. And my niece — without a word, without being asked — reached over and took her hand.
That image has stayed with me. Because it is everything about how my mom has taught us to be with grief. She doesn't shy away from the hard space. She sits down in it. She makes you feel less alone in the heaviest thing you are carrying.
Mom — this episode is for you. Thank you for showing us how.
Grief is not something you get over.
It is something you get to know.
Something you learn to carry — not as a burden — but as a part of you. A reminder of how much you loved. And how much you were loved in return.
And grief is not only about death. We grieve relationships that ended. Versions of ourselves we had to leave behind. Seasons of life that are over. Dreams that didn't come true. Pregnancies that were lost before they became the life you imagined. Pets who were family.
If you are carrying something right now that feels like loss — even if no one has died, even if it doesn't feel serious enough to call grief — I want you to know. It counts. You are allowed to sit with it.
Grief has taught me more about love than almost anything else.
It has taught me not to wait. To say the things. To show up. To stay.
Because none of this is promised. Not a single day. Not a single ordinary moment.
Is there someone you have been meaning to call? Something you have been meaning to say?
Don't wait.
A few questions to sit with:
- Is there a loss you are carrying that you have never fully given yourself permission to grieve?
- Is there a complicated grief in your life — a loss that comes with complexity alongside the mourning? Can you give yourself permission to feel all of it?
- Is there someone in your life who sits with you in the hard spaces — who doesn't look away from your grief? Have you told them what that means to you?
- Is there someone you have been meaning to call — something you have been meaning to say — that you have been putting off?
If this episode resonated with you I'd love to hear from you at faith@stillbuildingpodcast.com — I read every message.
You're not alone. You're not behind. You're not finished.
You're still building.
— Faith