Anjali Budreski
I stood — looking out at a silver sea, waves swirling around my ankles — more than a year after my father’s passing. The ocean is different in September, more serious and less playful. I walked myself back in time exactly a year ago: My mom was about to move into her new home, without my dad, and we were scurrying, like mice, to help her.
That July of 2024 I was walking this same beach, wailing and inconsolable — completely blindsided and walloped by the strongest waves of grief I have ever experienced. Dad was gone. It didn’t feel true. I could only imagine what the other beachgoers thought of this crazy woman, bumbling down the flats on the most perfect summer day, devastated. At this point, the swells of grief left me feeling exhausted and out of control. I felt like a stranger in a strange land and I didn’t like it.
Now I understand what a grief educator told us: “Grief is energetically expensive.”
It wasn’t until July of 2025 that I began my true apprenticeship with grief (to use the words of writer Francis Weller). Up until that point I had moved blindly, with no context for what I was going through, let alone tools to support myself. Grief was my constant companion, experienced as nightly crying jags, a short temper, and occasional missed appointments and deadlines.
Even though I had just lost one of the most important people in my life, I still thought that something must be deeply wrong with me. We live in a world that would prefer not to lean into one of the most normal and universal experiences that all of us humans must go through: the process of grieving. Just as we sanitize and tuck away the dying process, we also relegate grief to a few moments in private, away from community and with the caveat that “You should get back to work as soon as possible.”
At the time of my father’s sudden death, the only information I had about grief was the mention of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief, which, by the way, was designed for the dying person rather than those who are grieving. Although she was a true pioneer in the field of dying, death, and bereavement, she eventually applied those stages to the griever as well. Although they can be helpful, they are not linear and may not resonate at all.
When my beloved mother was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer less than a year after my father’s death, I could no longer hold back that tidal swell of grief. The barriers I had erected to keep myself “okay” and seeming normal came crashing down. I was adrift and directionless, floating among the flotsam in what felt like a low ebb.
Through the nudging of a dear friend and other bits of synchronicity, I landed in a place where I would learn to not only turn consciously toward my own oceanic feelings but feel inspired to share them with others as well. I enrolled in a course at the Cape Cod Institute called the Grief Mentor Method™️. It was not lost on me that I was attending this course in a town merely a stone’s throw from where my father took his precious last breath and almost exactly a year later.
My dear friend Steph and I stayed at my mom’s new home, simultaneously attending to her (fresh out of the hospital from an aggressive staph infection), swapping stories about our day at the institute, and savoring copious amounts of fried seafood. At the end of each day, we raced to the beach and dove headlong into the waves, allowing the salt to wash away any unneeded debris.
We were invited, on day one of the training, to show up as humans first and coaches and clinicians second. It was in that overly air-conditioned classroom at Nauset Regional Middle School in Orleans that I felt safe enough to squarely turn toward my grief with kindness. As hard as it was to say “yes” and “okay” to the pain, it felt divinely ordained to be in this place.
Being in a room full of 100 grief-sensitive therapists and coaches, all of us in one way or another coming to terms with our own grief, was nothing short of a gift. I unburdened the parts of me that were constantly holding back and let those healing, briny, salty tears flow unencumbered. I became more grief aware and literate. I realized that I was dealing with what is called complex grief. I learned a lot of things during the course of that week, many of which I’m still integrating.
Since the training, I have come to realize that grief work, rather than being draining or depressing, is actually life-affirming and liberating. As I have turned toward the sometimes bitter winds of grief and the large silver ocean of uncertainty, I feel empowered rather than sad. I feel more curious than anxious and inspired to bring the healing balm of grief work into my coaching practice.
Yes, it’s extremely hard to lose someone who we love. But we do have a choice. We can let it harden us or crack our hearts wide open. We can become a gorgeous double-winged mussel, rather than a sealed-shut oyster. When we finally allow ourselves to surrender to our grief, it is there that the next stage of transformation happens. It is in that moment that grief can become one of our greatest teachers and most potent allies.
