#12 Does time heal?
The question we need to know the answer to, and the one we get asked the most, after we lose a loved one
We’ve heard the saying “time heals all wounds”. With the holiday season fast approaching — which can be triggering for so many of us who have lost a loved one — in today’s newsletter, I wanted to reflect on my personal experience and thoughts on this concept of healing over time, specifically in the context of grief.
As with most of my posts, this conversation is not exclusive to the death of a loved one. It can be applied to “wounds” or grief of any kind — whether that’s a health scare or a new diagnosis, divorce or other relationship breakdown, job loss or retirement, the end of a significant friendship, a move, or any other major life change that brings about some form of loss.
I’d love to hear from you! When you’re done reading, click the comment button below and share with us:
Do you think time heals all wounds?
What has been your experience of grief and healing over time? Whether you’re early in your grief journey or further along like me, I’d love to know your perspective.
Dear Dad,
December hits hard for many grievers. For some, the holiday season is a stark reminder of who and what is missing in our lives. Festivities and celebrations never quite feel the same. With the new year around the corner, we face yet another year without those we’ve loved and lost. It’s a lot.
For me, every time December rolls around, I can’t help but think it was the last full month you saw out. In January, it will be six years since we lost you. SIX YEARS. It doesn’t feel real.
Sometimes, the pain of your absence feels so acute and raw, as though it was yesterday; like I’m right back there in that time and place, and the sheer intensity of it takes my breath away. At other times, it feels like a distant memory; as though I am clinging onto fleeting snapshots and images of your face, your voice, your presence that threaten to slip through my fingers like grains of the finest sand. With each passing year putting an ever-growing distance between my reality now and our reality back then, I sometimes find myself wondering “Did we really go through all that?”
It makes me think about a question I get asked a lot:
“Does time heal?”
In my experience, grief does change with time. In the early days, weeks and months, it was sharp, intense and all-consuming. I was reminded of you all the time. I would replay your last moments over and over again in my head, and constantly look through your photos and videos. My heart broke anytime I saw a father with his daughter, and I would cry whenever I saw a grandfather with his grandchild.
I can say with hindsight that this acuteness and depth of grief doesn’t stay that way forever. The days turn to weeks, weeks into months, and slowly the years blend into each other, and we look back and realise that our grief has indeed evolved over time.
For me, one of the earliest signs of this happening was when I started noticing that I wanted people to talk to me again about their regular day-to-day issues like they did before — things like work stress, travel plans, friendship dramas, or when the barista messed up their coffee order. I found that, for a while after you died, many people around me stopped telling me these things; probably because they felt like it was insignificant compared to the magnitude of what I was going through. We all mean well and are so conscious of not hurting or offending someone who’s grieving, so we walk on eggshells around them. And for my part, perhaps I wasn’t as receptive to people talking to me about their comparatively minor problems. I must admit, early on I struggled to hear about these daily dramas when I’d just watched someone I love die in front of my eyes after a three-year-long battle with a crippling disease. Everything else paled in comparison. After a while, though, I found that I started yearning for that point of connection again.
Our bonds with the people we care about are forged by sharing the minutiae of our lives and our struggles — whether big or small. This is what relationships are built on. When I started feeling like I was missing that with people, I realised this was a sign that the fog of early grief might be lifting.
But, grief is not straightforward. It’s messy and complicated. With this natural evolution of grief comes other feelings and experiences.
Guilt when you start laughing, smiling and feeling joy again.
Sadness when you realise there are times you’re not thinking about them now.
The heartache of knowing there are parts of your life and and parts of you as a person that they’ll never know. For me, I am a mum of three now — chronically sleep-deprived, surviving on inordinate amounts of caffeine and sugar, chaotic but my heart is full. I am an advocate for motor neurone disease (MND), also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and I am passionate about raising awareness for this devastating and often misunderstood disease that claimed your life. I am a writer now too whose desire to tell your story, our family’s story, my story, reignited a childhood passion for writing and a lifelong dream of one day being a published author. But you don’t know any of this. We continue to live and grow while our loved one remains frozen in time. That is a different kind of grief.
So does time heal?
The truth is, I think this question is misleading because it implies there is an end to grief. I’ve come to realise that’s just not true. Grief evolves over time, but it never goes away. Life is finite, but love is not. We continue to grieve because death cannot erase the love we had for those we’ve lost. And so, healing after loss is a journey we will be on for the rest of our lives.
It’s taken me some time, but I’ve come accept that grief will be with me forever, in some capacity or another. It’s still a work-in-progress, but I’m learning to allow space for grief because… I realise now, that’s how we keep love alive when it has nowhere else to go.
Miss you every day, Dad. Love you always. Until next time 💌
Ruhie
I’d love to hear from you! Click the comment button below and share with us:
Do you think time heals all wounds?
What has been your experience of grief and healing over time? Whether you’re early in your grief journey or further along like me, I’d love to know your perspective.
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I appreciated this nuanced view of time and grief, Ruhie. In my view, time doesn't heal, but grief does change, as you've said. It comes in waves - sometimes they're bigger or smaller than others, and it can be unpredictable when they will be what.
Holidays are hard for the grieving. I'm thinking of you and your family.
The idea that "time heals all wounds" has always felt like a soft promise—a soothing phrase people offer when they don’t know what else to say, they are not in my situation ,But in my experience, time doesn't heal; it reshapes.
When I lost someone dear, the early days felt like drowning. Every breath was sharp, each moment heavy with their absence. Grief was an unwelcome companion that shadowed me everywhere—at the dinner table, during sleepless nights, even in unexpected moments of laughter. It felt eternal, like no amount of time could ever ease the ache. Ruhie as you mentioned as days turned into months and then years, grief transformed.
It didn't disappear—it softened. The sharp edges dulled, and the weight lifted just enough to carry it differently.
I began to find ways to coexist ,I learned, wasn’t about forgetting or erasing the pain but about integrating it into my life in a way that allowed me to do day to day activities.
Looking back, I see grief as a teacher. It’s shown me the depths of my own strength and the value of the people still around me. Time didn’t heal the wound, but it gave me space to grow around it.
So, does time truly heal? For me, it’s less about healing and more about changing and learning to leave without loved ones and as you mentioned it’s journey rest of my life.
Whether you're just beginning this journey or have walked it for years.
I agreed with you, December months is very important and very difficult painful. But then I tried very hard to think about all the good times and memories.
God blessed you dear Ruhie