By Angeline Thomas, Hospital Chaplain, Nonprofit Executive, and Former Public Interest Attorney.
As the old adage goes, when the student is ready, the teacher appears – and for me, that teacher was grief.
In just two years, my father-in-law died unexpectedly. Then, my dad had died less than a year later. Four months later, I miscarried my second pregnancy. Three months after that, my mom died of cancer. My life, once so full of momentum, ground to a halt. At the time, I was in my mid-30s, leading a small policy focused nonprofit, raising a toddler, and had joined Cohort IV of the Leadership Academy eager to deepen my leadership in the justice movement. I thought the training would help me grow professionally, and it did. What I didn’t expect was that grief – not the curriculum – would become my most profound teacher.
After this cascade of deaths, the lawyer in me thought I could research my way through grief. I turned to books and articles, searching for a roadmap. Raised in a Christian household, I found little comfort in the faith that had once guided me. Yet, I longed for anything that could help me feel whole again.
I didn’t want to live in a world without my parents or where my second child existed only in memory. My sheer willpower had carried me through every prior challenge – law school, leadership roles, motherhood – and I was convinced that if I just worked harder, I could outpace the void that had opened up beneath me.
My parents’ deaths along with the miscarriage felt as though an earthquake had triggered a tsunami, leaving the familiar world around me flattened and submerged. I poured myself into my job, stacked my calendar with meetings, said yes to every opportunity, and clung to the hope that action could shield me from despair. I was terrified that if I ever stopped moving, I would fall apart completely.
But the tactics that once propelled me now betrayed me. The energy I once drew from purpose and urgency had vanished. I was numb, not motivated. I showed up, but didn’t feel present. It was as if I were a sailboat stranded in the middle of an endless ocean with no wind, no compass, and no land in sight.
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