I’ve been blessed. In my life, I have not experienced deep, seering, debilitating grief until this past year. My heart felt numb . . . like there was a hole inside. I looked at old photographs and spent days and hours working on a scrapbook. I appeared normal but I would have unexplained outbursts of anger. I stopped logging into my social media accounts. I stopped doing things that I enjoyed. I binge-watched countless episodes of television dramas. I spent days in bed. Getting up and completing simple daily tasks became a huge challenge. I would burst into tears without any reason. When I look back at the tasks that I completed . . . it amounted to very few.

Yet in the midst of my overwhelming pain, a former client reached out to me and asked for help. I remember explaining my situation and clarifying that I was not accepting clients for the time being. She immediately texted back, “But who will help my daughter?”

This simple question jolted me out of my daze. In that moment, I stopped focusing on myself . . . paused . . . and listened. I finally heard her daughter’s story, and my hurting heart, for the first time . . . in a long time. . . felt compelled to help.

I learned that in my grief when I stopped thinking about my own desperate feelings . . . it allowed me to step into someone else’s shoes and feel their anguish. When I used my time and energy to help others, it soothed my wounded heart.

"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said.

A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made.

Or a garden planted.

Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die,

and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there."

- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

I was reminded of the times when I was penniless . . . when the feelings of abandonment and hopelessness overwhelmed me. It was those times that my father provided hope and guidance to me in unexpected ways. I am what my father left behind. I know my father would have wanted me to help.