Several weeks ago, my brother and I traveled to the Carolina coastline to scatter our dad’s ashes. Our father passed away a few years ago during that terrible COVID time when you had to say goodbye to your loved one over the phone while a nurse held the phone to their ear. As the end of his life was drawing closer, Dad told my brother and me that he wanted us to scatter his ashes at Duck’s Dance Club in Myrtle Beach once he passed. Duck’s is a hot spot for beach dancing among certain folks that can best be described as “rode hard and put up wet.” My brother and I had never been there; we just knew Dad liked to take his various wives there to show off his sweet moves after a round of golf at Barefoot Landing.

“You mean to tell me that you want us to scatter your ashes at some crappy dive bar in Myrtle Beach?!?”

“Not at the bar, but ... you know ... back beside it ... on the beach somewhere”.

A dying man’s wish and I can still hear his slow, Southern drawl while typing this. So that’s exactly what we did. We returned him to where he had felt most alive. It was poignant and exactly what Dad wanted. We cried, laughed and hugged and then went to get seafood for dinner. We spent the weekend on Oak Island, across the North Carolina border, a place we spent every summer growing up, where we both learned to drive, and where I had my first job lifeguarding at Oak Island Golf Club. We swapped stories, while pointing out where the mini-golf, Sweet Treat ice cream shop, and VHS rental store used to be. It was something I needed more than I knew. There was something healing about being with the only person in the world who would “get it.” Sibling relationships are special that way.

Sometimes the words dry up. That has been the case for me these past several weeks. There have been many weekends of travel, with lots of day-to-day life shoved in. I’ve been swimming around in goodness while simultaneously processing what comes with adulting. My hunch is I’m not alone.

Grief is everywhere; there is no escaping it, and none of us are immune. Last week, I made a new friend and learned she is a widow, trying to start again after an unexpected and far-too-early loss. Some of my dearest friends in the world recently experienced a devastating house fire and are now in the process of recovering and rebuilding their home. We can’t explain or rationalize senseless tragedies like these, we just link arms with each other and keep going, knowing that the only way through, is through.

TED Talk from Nora McInerny: We don't "move on" from grief. We move forward with it.