Learning to live again after loss
March 26, 2026 | California, United States | Lourdes Morales-Gudmundsson
My husband of 51 years had just passed away, and I was devastated, trying to make sense out of this expected—yet unexpected—event in my life. It is hard to describe the feelings of emptiness that overwhelm you when a person that close to you no longer is there. You even begin to question who you are as you try to find your footing, slipping and falling—and picking yourself up again—hoping that this time you’ll know who you’ve become. After eight years of caretaking that brought me closer to my husband than I had ever been, I found myself asking, Who am I now? What is the purpose and meaning of my life now?
Amid this anxious searching, clinging as never before to my merciful Father, I received a card from a friend that read “Advice From a Glacier,”[1] and underneath that title was a series of words of wisdom. It all seemed so appropriate, my husband having come from Iceland, a place of mighty and majestic glaciers. Yes, I was ready to hear the ancient wisdom of this gentle giant speaking to me across the Nordic tundra. Here’s what it said:
Carve Your Own Path
Like the giant pack of perennial ice, forging its pathway over the centuries, I too must carve out a new identity, a rich one with soul-nourishing memories, yet firmly grounded in the present—as uncertain and even frightening as that present might be. It was the Spanish poet Antonio Machado, who once wrote that the path is formed as you walk it (Se hace camino al andar).[2] That thought was strangely comforting, empowering me to take the first step. But that thought was immensely enhanced by the assurance that I would not walk this new path alone: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Ps. 23:4, ESV).
Go Slow
Yes, I had to remind myself that there was no deadline ominously looming over me that I had to meet. I could take my time and let things happen rather than make them happen—as I had so often done in my professional and personal life. In Scripture the concept of slowing down is embodied in waiting. How often are we invited to “wait on the Lord”? That waiting breaks the stranglehold of stress that occurs when we’re trying to hurry to a solution and be done with it. Slowing down and waiting would also give me time to sort out the jumble of new duties I had to carry out and the new thoughts I had to unravel. There is, as I’ve discovered, great virtue in waiting on the Lord.
Channel Your Strengths
I knew what my strengths had been—teaching, traveling, singing—but I wasn’t sure if there were other strengths that I hadn’t yet discovered or employed. There was a liberating feeling in not being tied down to what I had previously been or what I had achieved, but rather seeing myself enriched by all that in order to launch into new territory. It meant breaking with people’s expectations of me based on past performance or successes and giving myself permission to channel my old and new strengths in new directions.
I had been doing a lot of this over my lifetime, but probably in the wrong way. I realized now, in my lonely cogitations, that I needed to make room for others on my terms while respecting theirs. I had to find a balance. For me, at this juncture, it meant walking away from responsibilities that were not really mine to bear anymore. It was easy for people to misinterpret my decisions, but I was beginning to see light in opening the way for others in my life differently.
Keep Moving Forward
It was hard to even keep moving at this point in my life. Some days the weight of grief hung more heavily on my mind and body than others. Even in those moments when lethargy made it hard to lift my head from the pillow, I knew that I must keep moving or something worse could happen to me. This is the point at which my prayer life took a turn for the better. I would get up and truly look forward to spending time talking to the Lord. And I do mean talking—out loud—as if my Savior were sitting by my side and we were simply conversing. These sacred sessions are what saved me from falling into the sinkhole of self-pity and energized me to keep moving forward. There was more the Lord had planned for my life.
Avoid Meltdowns
I can truly say that I was not afraid of meltdowns—I just let them come whenever they chose to come. I was told they would come in decreasing numbers and intensity over time, and that’s just what happened. But when they did come, I promised myself I would handle them more graciously—that never happened! A meltdown is so raw, so utterly out of your control, that it seems you’ll never recover from it. I found that if I could increase my involvement with life, whether it was grocery shopping or working with a ministry for the homeless, I would find a strength and reassurance that I would one day, once again, be reinserted into life—not the same life I had, but a new life. So it was OK to go through these inevitable bouts of unspeakable pain—unavoidable transitions into something better.
Be Cool!
I absolutely love this final bit of advice! It talks of trust, and peace, and joy, and everything good that comes from the hand of a merciful Father, an understanding Savior, and an empowering Spirit. It comes from One who knows what it is to suffer seemingly irreversible loss and come out triumphantly from the grave of despair. It speaks of rising from the hellfires of death into the cool and calming realms of eternal life. What could be cooler than that?
I have the card cover taped to a wall near the desk from which I write these lines, so that I may never forget the infinite wisdom of the glacier that helped me in my journey back to life and hope . . . reminding me that the glacier’s Creator is mine as well.
[1] While I’m not certain where my friend purchased the card from, it bore resemblance to this one sold by Advice for Life.
[2] Antonio Machado, Border of a Dream: Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2013), quoted here.