Life & Growth • December 2025 • By Dekena Wade

What Grief Looks Like When You Can't Pause Life

Trying to pass classes, show up for family, and still process losing my mom.

I left for Ghana the same day my mom passed.

I didn't plan it that way. The timing was cruel and coincidental. But there I was, on a plane to West Africa, processing the biggest loss of my life while simultaneously trying to show up for a semester abroad that was supposed to be transformative.

It was disorienting in a way I still don't have words for.

Grief doesn't pause for logistics. It doesn't wait for you to finish your semester or complete your internship or get your life organized. It just arrives, uninvited, and forces you to figure out how to keep moving.

The Pressure to Stay Strong

One of the hardest parts of losing a parent young is the expectation that you'll hold it together.

I'm the oldest. I'm supposed to be the responsible one. The one who helps my family navigate this, not the one falling apart.

So I did what I thought I was supposed to do: I kept going.

I attended classes. I participated in group projects. I showed up for my family. I didn't cry in public. I made it look like I was fine.

But internally, I was fractured.

There's a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from grieving while pretending you're not. It's not just sadness. It's the energy it takes to hold yourself together when everything inside feels like it's falling apart.

Grief Doesn't Look Like the Movies

I expected grief to be this all-consuming thing. Like I'd cry for a week and then slowly get better.

That's not how it works.

Grief is random. It hits you in the middle of a conversation about something completely unrelated. You're fine one moment and then a song comes on or you see something that reminds you of them, and suddenly you can't breathe.

I'd be in class, taking notes, and then I'd remember that my mom would never see me graduate. That she'd never meet my future kids. That there are entire chapters of my life she won't be part of.

And I'd have to sit there and pretend everything was fine.

The Guilt of Moving Forward

One of the things nobody tells you about grief is the guilt.

There were moments when I'd laugh at something, and then I'd feel guilty for laughing. Like I wasn't supposed to be happy. Like moving forward meant I was betraying the person I lost.

I had to learn that healing isn't betrayal.

Moving forward doesn't mean forgetting. It means learning to carry the loss while still building a life.

It means that yes, I can be sad about missing my mom AND excited about my future. Both things can be true at the same time.

What I Learned in Ghana

Being in Ghana during that time taught me something unexpected about resilience.

I was surrounded by people who had experienced loss in ways I couldn't even imagine. People who had lost parents, siblings, children. People who had learned to carry grief as part of their everyday lives.

And they kept moving. They kept laughing. They kept building.

They showed me that grief and joy aren't opposites. They're part of the same human experience.

You can miss someone deeply and still be present for your own life. You can honor their memory by living fully, not by staying frozen in sadness.

The Long Game

It's been a few months now, and I'm still learning how to do this.

Some days are harder than others. Some days I'm fine, and some days I'm not. Some days I think about her constantly, and some days I go hours without thinking about the loss.

But I'm learning that that's okay.

Grief isn't something you "get over." It's something you integrate into who you are.

You can mourn someone deeply and still keep moving forward. You can carry memories, love, and loss with you while continuing to build a life.

In many ways, that's what I'm still learning to do—taking each step forward not because the pain disappears, but because the people we love deserve to be remembered in the lives we continue to build.

As a Chinese idiom says:

山重水复疑无路，柳暗花明又一村

Shān chóng shuǐ fù yí wú lù, liǔ àn huā míng yòu yī cūn

Just when the road seems to disappear among mountains and rivers, suddenly another village appears ahead.