As grieving mothers, it’s easy to feel like optimism boarded a different train, leaving us on the rickety Grief Express. You know the one—it lurches forward unpredictably, derails at the smallest memory, and occasionally stops in the middle of nowhere for extended crying breaks. It’s an exhausting ride, and somewhere along the way, we lose sight of optimism.
Grief has this funny way of narrowing our focus. When you’re deep in the trenches of loss, optimism feels almost offensive. How can anyone expect us to “look on the bright side” when the person we love most is no longer here? But here’s the thing: optimism isn’t about ignoring the pain or pretending everything is okay. It’s about finding tiny slivers of light to guide us through the darkness.
Why We Lose Optimism in Grief
When you’re grieving, even the most basic tasks—making dinner, answering texts, brushing your hair—feel monumental. Your emotional bandwidth is stretched so thin that optimism seems like an unnecessary luxury. The rawness of grief demands so much from us that we stop looking for those small moments of joy.
Grief also comes with guilt. Optimism feels like betraying the person we lost. If we smile, laugh, or enjoy something, does it mean we’re forgetting them? (Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.) Dylan, my beautiful boy, wouldn’t want me stuck in despair. I can almost hear him teasing me, “Really, Mom? A bad hair day and a bad mood? Pull it together.”
Taking Optimism Along for the Ride
But what if we made room for optimism on the Grief Train? What if, instead of seeing it as a betrayal, we saw it as a survival tool? It’s not about ignoring grief—it’s about balancing the heaviness with moments of lightness. Here’s what I’ve learned along my journey:
Start Small Optimism doesn’t have to look like a sunny Instagram quote. It’s the tiny wins: your coffee tastes good today, you caught a beautiful sunset, or your kid made you laugh so hard you snorted. These little moments remind us that joy still exists, even in grief.
Allow for Humor Grief is absurd, isn’t it? The way you can be sobbing one minute and laughing at an unrelated meme the next? Give yourself permission to find humor in the chaos. Like when I found myself sobbing over my son’s favorite chips in the grocery aisle—then realized I was crying because they were out of it. If Dylan were there, he would’ve rolled his eyes and said, “Mom, it’s just chips. Chill.”
Hold Both Joy and Pain Grief and optimism aren’t opposites—they’re companions. You can carry your heartbreak while still finding reasons to smile. It doesn’t diminish the depth of your love or the weight of your loss. It just means you’re human.
Look for Signs For me, signs from Dylan are my anchor. A feather, a butterfly, the number 27—these moments feel like whispers from him, reminding me that love doesn’t end. Maybe your sign is different, but trust me: they’re out there, nudging you toward a little hope.
Embracing the Duality
The Grief Train doesn’t have a destination—it’s a ride we’ll take for the rest of our lives. But the scenery doesn’t have to be all dark clouds. There are rainbows after the storms, moments of laughter in between tears, and an enduring love that carries us forward.
So let’s pack optimism in our grief luggage. Not as an escape, but as a companion. Because while grief is a testament to our love, optimism is a testament to our resilience. And trust me, you’re stronger than you feel right now.
Some days, optimism might feel like an unwanted guest on your journey, but other days, it might be the little nudge you need to keep going. And who knows? Maybe, just maybe, it’ll remind you to laugh at life’s absurdities—like crying over cereal. Dylan would’ve found that hilarious.
Hang in there, Mama. There’s room for both grief and joy on this ride.
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