I’m sitting out on my back porch early in the morning looking out into the yards behind my house and the only thought in my head is “How can I live in a world without her?”

This is one of those mornings when I wish I had more language or ability to write about the massive losses that have happened this week. How my heart hurts for so many, and for myself. The losses are all so big and so different. This week two very different uncles died—and they leave such big holes of loss in their families—my heart aches for all of them, and the loss that they feel, and the ways that their lives will change and shift.

And then there is the overwhelming and devastating loss in Maui this week: houses, landscapes, businesses, lives. Jarring and sobering visuals of what it looks like when you lose everything: when you lose what you love most. It is such a stark reminder of how fragile the world is, how fragile we are. A reminder that the only certain thing in this world is uncertainty.

And then there is the loss of a teammate and friend I hold dear, Grace.

And I look around the backyard in disbelief wishing it weren’t true.  This isn’t the I first time I’ve awoken early from a sleepless night with this thought and a broken heart. There is a disorientation, an instability, a deep disbelief of the world after the death of someone important to you. It feels like there is less oxygen. It feels like you have to move more carefully. And the denial of death always makes me want to wait, hope the news was a mistake, just sit still long enough, patient enough for them to return. And then you breathe and take in reality again. How do I live in a world without her?

When someone dies it’s not just that the world feels emptier without them, it feels like there is something in us that has changed. What is the world without them? Who am I without them?

We are mosaics. We are made up of pieces that makes us who we are: we are where we come from, we are where we have been, we are who we love and have loved, and we are what we hold dear.

Grace was the very definition of her name--an unearned gift—an unmerited divine benediction. She brought love, and light and kindness with her wherever she went. She did this at 20, and she did this at 50. I feel her loss keenly even though I wasn’t her best friend—we were teammates on the rowing team in college. And my experience of Grace, and her friendship is such an important reminder of the power of kindness and love. That a small act can be massive in someone’s life. More than you may ever know.

When I was a sophomore and was struggling—with anxiety, self-doubt, fear. She would occasionally leave notes on my door cheering me on—or invite me over for a pep talk.  I didn’t have a lot of support in my life at the time, and her notes and care felt like a lifeline.  Late that fall,  before a big race, she made me a card that said on the inside: You’re a Masterpiece. It was a message that was actually too big for me to take in at the time. But I held on to the card. At some point I cut out the message and hung it on my wall. I still have it. I didn’t believe it when I got the card. But I could feel her belief. I could feel her kindness. I could sit in her grace: the beautiful unearned gift.

In American culture there is such an emphasis on the individual—that I am solely myself. But this notion of identity is an illusion and that illusion is shattered when someone dies. In that moment you can see and feel that the person who died held an important support rope for you. You may not have even noticed it when they were alive. But in their absence you suddenly feel vulnerable, wobbly, as if you could topple without their support. You realize that you could be who you were because of them.

My friend Eddy taught me this. In our work in his home country of Zambia and across the world, he brought the belief he was raised with, ‘Ubuntu’ to our work. ‘Ubuntu’ means ‘I am because you are’— that we are who we are because of our relationships—we are who we are because of our community.  As the psychologist Jean Baker Miller says we are selves-in-relation. And this is the fact we feel most keenly when someone dies: I am because of you. And now, who am I without you?

We are mosaics and when someone dies those mosaic pieces must shift. When someone is alive, they hold those pieces of themselves and through our connection to them we feel the benefits and borrow the strengths of those pieces. And then when someone dies we have the work, the growth, of taking in, of integrating those pieces that we are able to. Taking in those strengths and capacities into our own selves—for us and the community.

That’s why our hearts must break. This is why we must fall apart. This is why grief shatters.  We need the brokenness. Without the brokenness we can’t take in the new pieces. Falling apart allow us to absorb the mosaic pieces of the other. It is this grief that allows us to rebuild a world without them, that includes them. This is why time is so necessary to grieving. It takes time to weave these new pieces in. It takes time to remake our mosaics.

How do I live in a world without her? Maybe the short answer is I don’t. Because I bring her into my life every day. I look for places to cheer people on, and Grace is smiling. I stand in the voting booth and my grandmother is standing next to me. I dig up plants and share them with my neighbors and my mother-in-law is right there with me handing me the spade. I rearrange my schedule to make time for writing and my friends Inger and Janet are raising their glasses and toasting my decision. Our hearts break open and our mosaics, the world’s mosaics, get bigger. First, let yourself grieve. And then, let yourself grow.

© 2023 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD