Healing Grief Matters Newsletter
You Don't Have to Forgive to Heal
Your healing is not about forgiving how they left — It is about reclaiming your right to exist in the wake of it.
You Don't Have to Forgive to Heal
How they left might mean a car accident at seventeen. It might mean a choice made in a moment of darkness that left you with questions you will never stop asking. It might mean a suitcase by the door and silence after. It might mean a phone that stopped ringing and never started again.
However they left — you are still here. That is where we begin.
This week, a story sat with me. A man who has been dismantled by life, layer by layer.
His losses did not just pierce the heart; they wounded the soul in a way that left him unrecognizable to himself. One after another, the pillars of his world fell:
A child lost to illness at five years old.
A daughter to a horse-riding accident at fifteen.
His parents to an accident while traveling overseas.
And one year ago, the final silence: His wife walked out the door and never came back.
This man writes of a life lived in the profound aftermath—trying to heal a depth of pain that feels out of reach. It is a weight that steals his every waking hour and follows him into his sleep."
He has done what we are told to do. The "Five Stages" have met him at every core level. Counseling, support groups, and self-healing rituals have failed to find the steady ground he seeks. Even prayers, calling out to God for his needs as he waits for the pain to find its way home, have lost their way.
He is requesting ideas from us.
When the depth of grieving comes with no end in sight—when the swirling of despair holds you captive, and the air itself feels heavy with "why"—what do you reach for that doesn’t break?
The Sandstorm of Resistance
To keep fighting against the absence is like walking through a sandstorm in only a T-shirt and shorts. You will be shredded. You will be weakened by grief’s unyielding determination to keep the pain raw, burning, and focused only on what is hurting.
It blinds you from the situation for just what it is—however unjust, unfair, or unreal it might be. Because life is cruel sometimes. Very cruel. And there are some things that will take a lifetime to heal.
Fighting against the absence keeps you hostage in the ravine you have been thrown in. It slowly and insidiously takes your life, day by day, year by year, until one afternoon you realize your life has gone by in angst—derailed by situations you could not have controlled even if you wanted to.
The Only Word
This type of overcoming is not about what happened; it is about finding your way to the heart of it. It is the place where you and the heavyweight of fear meet for the first time.
To do this, there is only one word-
Surrender.
Standing up to the darkness of fear and surrendering a fight that makes the marrow of your bones ache is to give up your sword. It is to allow space for the unbearable to be seen. Not resisted—seen in its entirety.
Grief does not need to be defeated. It needs to be witnessed.
Held.
Given a place to be, however ugly it might be.
A Different Way to Heal
That is the fight. The hurt. This kind of grief needs a different way to heal. It requires the courage to feel—to surrender and hold space for the pain of what happened without a need to find its release, its punishment, or its banishment from your heart.
Grief is asking you to lay down the fight to protect, to want, to need, and to forgive. It is asking you to let the wound be met with a way of life that doesn’t continue the hurt.
Grief will do this for you.
Because in the end, life is what it is. We cannot change some things, however painful that may be.
Healing, in this kind of grief, is not found in overcoming what happened. It is found in learning how to live in a world where it did.
How do we begin to surrender to such hurt?
Not all at once. Never all at once.
Surrender comes the way dawn comes — not in a single moment, but in the slow, almost imperceptible lightening of what was completely dark.
It begins with one breath taken without fighting what the breath costs you.
It begins with one hand placed on your own chest and one quiet acknowledgment —
This happened. It was real. And I am still here.
It begins with giving the terror a chair in the corner and asking the quieter thing — the grief, the love, the missing — to finally come forward.
It begins with stopping the fight long enough to feel what the fight has been protecting you from feeling.
Because underneath the terror, underneath the injustice, underneath the rage and the bargaining and the sleepless hours —
Grief is waiting.
Not to destroy you.
To complete you.
Grief is the love that has nowhere left to go. And when you stop fighting it long enough to let it be seen — fully, honestly, without apology — something shifts.
Not because the pain disappears.
But because you are no longer at war with it.
And a life without that war — even a life forever marked by loss — is a life that can still be lived.
That is the surrender.
That is the path forward.
That is where healing lives — not on the other side of what happened, but quietly, stubbornly, courageously, inside a life that chose to continue anyway.
You do not have to forgive how they left.
You only have to choose to stay.
With the deepest love and unwavering commitment,
Stella Rose, RN BSN, Hospice Nurse, Grief Educator & Author
Founder of Healing Grief Matters / 12 Grief Solutions
Mother of Miles.
"For in the end, our loved ones do not live on in our suffering — they live on in our love carried forward."
Stella Rose
The Hearthside Kitchen
Comfort Foods In Less Than 15 Minutes- For Those Days When You Need It The Most.
🌿 Warm Brie & Tomato Bruschetta with Balsamic Glaze
A soft, comforting bite for moments when you need something warm, simple, and grounding.
🥖 Ingredients
1 baguette or rustic bread, sliced
1 small wheel of brie cheese
1–2 ripe tomatoes, chopped into chunks
A handful of fresh greens (arugula or butter lettuce)
1–2 tbsp olive oil
Balsamic glaze (store-bought or reduced balsamic vinegar)
Small handful of chopped nuts (walnuts or almonds)
Pinch of salt + black pepper
🍽️ How to Make
Toast the bread
Lightly brush slices with olive oil.
Toast in the oven at 375°F for 5–7 minutes until warm and slightly crisp.Warm the brie
Slice the brie and place on top of the toasted bread.
Return to the oven for 3–5 minutes until soft and just beginning to melt.Add the toppings
Remove from oven and layer:fresh greens
chopped tomatoes
Finish
Drizzle with balsamic glaze.
Sprinkle with chopped nuts.
Add a pinch of salt and pepper.
🌿 Why This Works in Grief
🧠 1. Warm + soft foods calm the body
👉 Warm, soft textures (like melted brie and toasted bread)
send a signal of:
safety
comfort
ease
This helps the body begin to settle—without effort.
🍅 2. Fresh ingredients bring you back to the present
The tomatoes, greens, and drizzle of balsamic:
engage the senses
gently bring awareness back to taste and texture
🥜 3. Small bites reduce overwhelm
In grief, even eating can feel like too much.
This kind of food:
doesn’t require a full meal commitment
can be eaten slowly, piece by piece
🫶 4. It feels like care—especially if you made it to enjoy while being settled into your couch.
There’s something about:
warm bread
soft cheese
thoughtful layering
🌿 Fresh Strawberry Tart
A gentle, sweet dish for days when you need something light—but still nourishing.
🥧 Ingredients
Crust:
1 pre-made pie crust (or simple shortbread crust for ease)
Filling:
1 cup mascarpone cheese (or cream cheese)
2–3 tbsp honey or maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
Topping:
2–3 cups fresh strawberries, sliced
2 tbsp strawberry jam or preserves
1 tsp water
Optional:
Fresh mint leaves
🍽️ How to Make
Bake the crust
Pre-bake your pie crust according to package directions.
Let it cool completely.
Make the filling
In a bowl, mix:mascarpone (or cream cheese)
honey or maple syrup
vanilla
Stir until smooth and soft.
Spread the base
Gently spread the filling into the cooled crust.
Arrange the strawberries
Place sliced strawberries across the top—
no need for perfection. Just layer them gently.
Add the glaze
Warm the jam with a teaspoon of water.
Lightly brush over the strawberries for that soft shine.
Finish
Add a small sprig of mint if you like.
🌿 Why This Works in Grief
🍓 1. Naturally sweet, not overwhelming
Grief can make:
heavy foods feel like too much
appetite unpredictable
Strawberries provide:
👉 light sweetness
👉 hydration
👉 ease
🧠 2. Soft textures calm the nervous system
creamy base
soft fruit
tender crust
👉 These textures signal:
safety + ease
🍯 3. A small lift without a crash
Natural sugars (fruit + honey):
give a mild energy lift
support mood
🌿 4. It invites you back into your senses
Color
Texture
Taste
🤍 5. It feels like care
This is important.
Even if you make it yourself, this kind of food feels like:
👉 someone thought about you
And in grief, that matters more than we realize.
It is the warmth of a meal that will soon be enjoyed — that reminds us, even in the quietest seasons of grief, that nourishment is also an act of love.
The ToolBox- Weekly Go To’s.
One small act of care can reshape the landscape around you, a quiet reminder that healing often begins one step at a time.
How one small act of care can turn inner silence into a sanctuary.
The Strategy of Surrender: Reclaiming Your Control
To the heart in profound grief, the word surrender sounds like a terrifying betrayal. It sounds like giving up. It sounds like falling. It sounds like they won.
But let’s look at the psychology of the "fight." When we resist the endings we cannot change, we aren't actually winning—we are being held hostage. We are exhausted, not by the loss itself, but by the weight of the sword we refuse to put down.
In the aftermath of the unthinkable, surrender is the only real control we have left.
The Audit of the Ravine
Life tosses us into the ravine, and for a long time, we stay there. We stay because we believe that if we let go of the pain, we are letting go of the person.
But take a moment to audit your current reality. Look closely at the "entanglement of feelings" that visit you in the midnight hours:
How do you respond to people these days? Is your voice your own, or is it the voice of your exhaustion?
How is your connection with your loved ones? Are you present, or are you a ghost in your own home?
Where are your thoughts in every waking minute? Are they building a future, or are they endlessly litigating a past that cannot be changed?
The world expects you to be "on the other side of grief” within a year. They return to their dinners and their routines, unaware of the terror that visits you nightly. Faced with that abandonment, you try to control every situation that even smells like grief. You tighten your grip until your knuckles are white and the marrow of your bones aches.
But white knuckles cannot heal.
The Toolbox: Naming the Terror
Surrender begins when we stop treating our feelings like enemies to be defeated and start treating them like witnesses to be heard.
We cannot change what we are doing until we name the psychological trigger.
Use this space to name the entanglement. Don't be polite. Be honest.
The Trigger: When the specific thought of ____________________ (the accident, the choice, the silence) enters my mind…
The Reaction: I immediately start to ____________________ (control the house, withdraw from my spouse, replay the last conversation).
The Truth: When these thoughts come, what I am actually most afraid to feel is ____________________.
The Ending: Choosing the Witness over the Terror
We often confuse the terror of how they left with the grief of who we lost.
The terror is a thief. It is the injustice, the addiction, the unforgivable loss, the suitcase by the door. It is loud, it is blinding, and it demands you cater to it — replaying the scene, litigating the injustice, and drowning in the why.
But there is a quieter, more sacred presence waiting behind that noise:
The Grief.
Grief is not the injustice. Grief is the love that was interrupted.
Surrender, in the wake of such a violation, is not about accepting that what happened was "okay." It was not. It was unjust. It was cruel.
But surrender is the moment you stop allowing the terror to run your life. It is the moment you say to the trauma: "You have taken enough. You do not get to take my healing, too."
The Shift: When you stop fighting the reality of what happened, the terror loses its grip. You are no longer "catering" to the horror. You are finally free to witness the feelings—the actual sadness, the bone-deep disappointment, and the longing for a life that should have been.
This is the brave work of the survivor.
You aren't surrendering to the person who hurt you. You are surrendering to your own right to be healed. You are laying down the sword so you can finally use your hands to tend to your own heart.
Because you are still here. And your life is worth more than the way it was wounded.
But small steps and feeling the safety — that changes the whole texture of it. Surrender is not a cliff. It is a path. And only you can take the next step when the ground beneath you feels solid enough.
12 Grief Solutions: How to Grow from Unresolved Grief by Stella Rose. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C87VC3V3
One Thing at a Time-
Practical steps for steady ground.
Surrender does not begin with letting go of the loss.
It begins with creating a place inside your body where you are no longer at war.
When the Loss Was Unjust
There are losses that carry more than grief. There are losses that arrive through injustice — through violence, through violation, through illness or malpractice, through the kind of cruelty that should never have found its way to your door. Losses that were not accidents of life but acts against it.
For those losses, the terror is not just a feeling. It is a physical presence. It lives in your chest before you are even awake. It arrives as an image, a sound, a smell — before your mind has had a single conscious thought. This is not weakness. This is trauma.
And trauma and grief, though they arrive together, are not the same thing.
Grief lives in the heart. Trauma lives in the body.
And you cannot reach the grief — the love that was interrupted, the life that should have been — until the body feels safe enough to go there.
This is why the usual tools do not work for losses born from injustice. Journaling, talking, support groups — they meet the mind. But the body is still standing in the moment it happened, waiting for someone to tell it the danger has passed.
Before surrender can happen, safety must come first.
Not safety from the world. Safety inside yourself.
And that begins not with a thought — but with a breath.
Tool One — The Safety Breath
Before you can feel the grief, your body needs to know it is safe right now, in this moment, in this room.
This is not meditation.
This is not relaxation.
This is a signal — sent from you, to your own nervous system — that the danger has passed.
Here is how:
Sit with both feet flat on the floor. Feel the ground beneath you. Press down gently if you need to — just enough to feel it pushing back.
Place one hand on your chest.
Breathe in slowly for four counts. Hold for four. Out for six.
Do this three times.
With each exhale, say silently or out loud —
I am here. I am in this room. The ground is beneath me. I am not there anymore.
You are not trying to forget what happened. You are simply reminding your body that right now, in this breath, you are safe.
That is the first step toward surrender.
That is where grief begins to separate from terror.
Tool Two — The Body Check
Trauma hides in the body in specific places. The jaw. The shoulders. The chest. The stomach. The hands.
Before you can witness the grief, you need to find where the terror is living right now.
Sit quietly. Close your eyes if it feels safe to do so.
Starting at the top of your head, slowly move your attention down through your body. Not to fix anything. Just to notice.
Where is the tension? Where is the tightness? Where are you holding something you did not know you were holding?
When you find it — and you will find it — place your hand there gently.
Do not try to release it. Do not try to breathe it away.
Just say —
I feel you. I know you are carrying something heavy. I am not going to ask you to let go today. I am just here with you.
That is witnessing. That is the body being seen instead of fought.
And slowly — not today, maybe not this week — but slowly, the body begins to feel safe enough to let the grief through.
Because underneath the terror, the grief is waiting.
And the grief is not the injustice.
The grief is the love.
Surrender is not the end of that reaching. It is the moment the reaching finally finds something solid to hold onto.
Not an answer. Not a resolution. Not the return of what was taken.
But this —
The quiet knowing that you are allowed to still be here. That your life did not end with theirs.
That the love you carry is not a wound to be healed but a light to be carried forward.
You do not have to forgive how they left.
You do not have to make peace with what remains.
You do not have to be over it, through it, or past it.
You only have to take one small step onto the path.
Feel the ground beneath you.
And know that grief — the real grief, the love underneath all of it — has been waiting for you all along.
It is not the bully at the door.
It is the hand reaching toward you from the other side of it.
Open it when you are ready.
Surrender is not a cliff.
It is a path.
And you are not walking it alone.
— Stella Rose
The fact that you are still here. Still asking. Still looking for the next small thing to try.
That is not weakness.
That is the most faithful thing a grieving person can do.
Remember- You are Loved. You are Worthy. You are Here. Period.
We’re Building A Global Community!
Nobody Should Have to Walk Through
Grief Alone
Some of the most honest things I have ever read began with two words… Dear Stella.
And then — slowly — someone begins to tell their truth of what they are living with.
Not the version people see. Not the version they say out loud.
But the real thing.
The questions that don't have easy answers. The parts of grief that don't fit quaintly into conversations. The moments that leave you wondering if what you are feeling is changing everything about you.
I have been sitting with these letters.
Reading them slowly. Holding what is inside them.
Because there is something that arrives in the space between the writing and the sending — a kind of courage that simply moves the hand forward one word at a time until the true thing is finally on the page.
What I have come to understand — in all the reading, with what people have trusted me to hold —
is this.
Grief is one of the loneliest passages a human soul can move through.
Not because love is absent.
But because the deepest experiences of loss live in a place that ordinary language cannot reach, it is felt. And it aches.
In the hours before dawn, when the world is still, and the question rises again — the one without an answer, the one you have turned over a thousand times in the dark…
Someone else, somewhere across the world, in a different kitchen, in a different quiet, in a different language of loss —
has been holding those exact same words.
Alone.
In the dark.
Waiting.
Not for an answer.
But for the knowledge that they are not the only ones asking.
These are the questions most people never say out loud.
Not because they are too small.
But because they feel too large.
Too exposed.
Too close to something sacred to risk being misunderstood.
The thought that has been circling for months.
The feeling that has never found the right container.
The thing you have wanted to ask — but could not find the right place to share it.
This month, I decided to expand something I hold sacred.
A place that has always existed—but has not been widely known.
It’s called Dear Stella.
It was built slowly—out of letters, trust, and the understanding that some questions deserve more than a passing answer.
More than a comment.
More than a quick reply.
It was built from a seventeen-year journey of searching for my own answers—after the loss of my son Miles, and my mom, who lived with lung cancer for over twenty years.
For the questions that live closest to the heart.
For the person who has been waiting—
wondering if there is somewhere steady enough to finally ask:
Is what I’m feeling normal?
If there is something you have been carrying—and have not known where to place it—
I would like to invite you to share your thoughts, questions, concerns, and daily struggles. Because many are waiting for someone else to go first. Your courage ignites others to step forward. People want to feel safe in sharing their vulnerabilities. This is true for all of us to some degree.
Waiting to know they are not alone in it.
Not because people cannot handle their own grief.
Because we find a particular relief in discovering that what we thought was ours alone belongs to more of us than we knew.
You don't need the right words. You don't have to explain it perfectly. You don't have to know where to begin.
Just begin with two words. Dear Stella…Your body will take it from there.
[email protected] Subject line: Dear Stella
With your permission — and with names changed — I would like to share some of these stories here and in our newsletter, and in the Healing Grief Matters Journal.
Your words can give language to something someone else has been carrying for years. And for the person who has been waiting for someone to go first—
Your letter may be the moment everything shifts.
That is not a small thing. That is how we build a global community.
If something has been sitting with you — a question that feels too heavy for ordinary conversation, too private for people who know you, too real to risk being misunderstood — you can bring it here:
With Love, Strength, and Grace to Keep Us Going,
Stella Rose, RN, BSN
Hospice Nurse, Author, Founder, Healing Grief Matters, 12 Grief Solutions
Mother of Miles
"For in the end, our loved ones do not live on in our suffering — they live on in our love carried forward.
12 Grief Solutions: How to Grow
from Unresolved Grief- The Book
There are days when the weight of loss becomes too much.
When the grief you were managing begins to lead you somewhere you never intended to go.
A life that looks nothing like the one you planned. A version of yourself you do not quite recognize. A heaviness that has lasted longer than anyone told you it would.
If this is where you are —
12 Grief Solutions: How to Grow From Unresolved Grief was written for this exact moment.
Not the moment of the loss.
This moment.
The one nobody talks about. The afterward, when life moves on. And you're still holding your loss with all your might. (as we all do)
For the days when nothing makes sense—and you still have to move forward.
A seventeen-year journey from broken to found.
Get your copy here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C87VC3V3
Resources and Contacts
Healing Grief Matters is dedicated to transforming the way the world understands and heals grief.
We Value Your Thoughts: We would love to hear what matters most to you during these difficult times. Share with us your needs, concerns, or stories that have shaped your world and how they have influenced your path in life.
Contact us at: [email protected]
Mail us: PO Box 1288, Kingston, Washington 98346
For more stories, tools, and ways in which we can support your journey, please visit our websites:
Stay connected. Stay courageous. Stay nourished.
— Stella Rose, Founder, Healing Grief Matters & 12 Grief Solutions
Stella Rose- A powerful and compassionate force in the realm of nursing, with over 15 years of experience specializing in grief, hospice, and unresolved life issues, working along the rugged coastal shores of the Pacific Northwest. Her expertise lies in guiding individuals through the profound complexities of grief that arise from the loss of a loved one, a way of life, death, self-identity, and personal trauma.
A truth seeker at heart, Stella is constantly researching new ways to ease suffering and bring solace to those in need. Her journey has taken her to diverse corners of the globe, where she has gathered healing modalities from various cultures and traditions. Through her 12 Grief Solutions framework and carefully curated resources, Stella guides individuals through the transformative work of grief—helping them honor their loss, process their pain, and discover the resilience and wisdom that emerge from walking through darkness.
With Deepest Gratitude-
Thank you for reading and trusting us to walk this path with you. Every reader strengthens our global community of support. We wish you peace and comfort during these difficult times.
Until next week- Keep Hopping.
Healing Grief Matters