We don’t “move on” from grief; we move forward with it

In a talk that’s by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, writer and podcaster Nora McInerny shares her hard-earned wisdom about life and death. Her candid approach to something that will, let’s face it, affect us all, is as liberating as it is gut-wrenching. Most powerfully, she encourages us to shift how we approach grief.

TED

The people in our life who have died are still present for us. We don’t “move on.” Thank you McInerny for unwinding some of the social and emotional confusion around grief and death and the love we have for people who are dead and yet still present in our lives.

I’ve sometimes wondered why we use the ongoing present tense with authors and scholars, but not with loved ones.

We move forward with our dead.

“A grieving person is going to laugh again and smile again. They’re going to move forward. But that doesn’t mean that they’ve moved on.”

Nora McInerny