When Remembering No Longer Hurts

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”—Psalm 147:3 (NKJV)

I used to believe that remembering my son would always hurt.

How could I say his name without feeling the weight of his absence? How could I revisit the day I learned he was dead without being pulled back into the darkness of that moment?

How could a mother continue living when a part of her had been buried with her child?

In the early years following Curtis’s death, I did not have all the answers. I was still living the questions.

That is the woman you meet in the introduction to From Grief to Gratitude. She was not writing from the finish line. She was taking snapshots while the journey was still progressing—capturing moments of devastating grief, unexpected peace, and the gradual discovery that God’s faithfulness had not changed simply because her life had.

My world went dark on August 21, 2017.

While people gathered to watch a solar eclipse, I experienced what felt like a total eclipse of my heart. During my lunch break, I learned through Facebook that my son’s body had been lying in a New York morgue for two days.

Without warning, I was thrust into the darkest moment of my life.

Everything I believed was tested.

How could the God I loved and served allow this to happen to me? Would my faith hold under the weight of such pain? Could peace exist in the same heart that had been shattered by loss?

I didn't know how the story would unfold, but I made a decision about what I believed. Ten toes down, after a shouting match with God (I was the only one shouting), I chose to trust God while my heart was still hanging by a thread.

That decision did not remove my grief overnight, but little by little, the pain began to change.

Healing didn't require me to forget Curtis or to stop speaking his name. Healing taught me how to remember him without repeatedly returning to the moment I lost him.

Healing taught me the difference between remembering and reliving.

Remembering allows love to remain.

Reliving forces the wound to reopen.

For years, I was documenting my movement from grief toward gratitude. I could recognize God’s faithfulness even while I was still healing. Gratitude became a pathway that helped lead me out of the pit, but the journey continued beyond the pages I had written.

Today, I can say something the woman who began that journey could not yet say:

I am grief-free.

I remember my son without being overtaken by sadness. The triggers that once pulled me backward no longer have that power. Curtis remains part of my story, but grief is no longer the author of it.

That freedom did not erase my past. It changed my relationship with it.

Pause and reflect.

Have you mistaken carrying pain for honoring the person you lost?

Are you afraid that healing might mean forgetting?

What if releasing the pain does not diminish your love?

You don't have to remain wounded to prove that someone mattered. You can cherish the memories, honor the life, and continue loving the person while allowing your own heart to heal. Healing is not betrayal, peace is not forgetfulness, and moving forward does not mean leaving your loved one behind.

Perhaps you are not yet able to imagine a day when remembering will no longer hurt. I understand. There was a time when I couldn't imagine it either, but I was hopeful.

I am living proof that the wound can close, the heart can heal, and life can become beautiful again.

You may still be living the questions, but that does not mean healing is not already happening within you.

If you are ready to participate intentionally in your healing journey, discover practical steps for moving beyond the pain in Healing From Within: A Practical Guide to Overcoming Grief.