Missing My People: Gratitude & Living Memory
Listen In
Reflection Snapshot
Theme: Missing the people we love and letting grief soften into gratitude and living memory.
Intention: To gently explore how our loved ones continue to live through us, and how we can honor them by how we love and show up now.
Over the last nine years, JLyn has said goodbye to more people than she ever imagined, with 2016 becoming a year she will never forget. December, though her birth month, is now also a sacred and heavy month, a time of “knowing and bracing” as she learned multiple loved ones were likely to transition and then watched that become reality. Instead of speaking only from the weight of grief, she invites us to remember our people with gratitude, to name the small everyday ways they loved us, and to see ourselves as a mosaic of everyone who ever shaped us. This reflection also widens into a loving, practical call to prepare for our own eventual transition, so those who remain are freer to grieve instead of drowning in logistics.
Reflecting ...
When the Missing Sneaks Up on You
Missing someone is not linear. Some days you are fine, and on other days a song, a scent, a voicemail, or a TV show pulls you right back into the ache as if no time has passed at all. It is often not the birthdays or big holidays that unravel you, but the random Tuesday when something funny happens and your hand automatically reaches for your phone before you remember you cannot call.
These “small” moments are where grief hides: in the way they answered the phone, a nickname only they used, or a phrase you suddenly hear coming out of your own mouth. JLyn encourages you not to run from those moments but to lean into them instead, crying in the grocery store if you must, laughing out loud at the memory, even drafting a text to their old number if it helps you let the love move through. That ache, she reminds us, is not weakness; it is proof that the connection was real and that love does not end when the body does.
Becoming a Mosaic of Our People
Every person you miss left you something: recipes, inside jokes, playlists, questions that pushed you to grow, prayers they never mentioned, a specific way they showed up that nobody else could imitate. JLyn remembers listening to old voicemails and realizing they were a soundtrack of the people she had lost, especially in 2016 when around eight to ten people she knew personally passed between March and November, including her niece and, two months and two days later, her brother.
She invites you to name what your person left you and to say it out loud or write it down, because naming their value honors their existence. Maybe you had someone with whom the words always flowed, where you did not have to perform or code‑switch, where you could change your mind three times in one conversation and still feel completely accepted. Losing that kind of ease feels like losing a home. If you ever had a cousin, sibling, uncle, or friend like that, you were deeply blessed, and one way to honor them now is to seek that kind of freedom again and to become that safe place for someone else.
For those who feel like they lost a mirror or translator when a particular person transitioned, JLyn offers a reframe: being seen that deeply was a gift, and that seeing did not disappear when they died; it is imprinted on your soul. We are a mosaic of every person who ever loved, challenged, and shaped us, and when you catch yourself sounding like them, cooking like them, or handling a situation the way they would have, that is not coincidence, that is continuation.
Preparation as a Quiet Love Letter
Alongside memory and emotion, the reflection names a tender and practical truth: when someone dies, especially unexpectedly, the people left behind are already drowning in emotion, and the practical details can become a second wave of loss. Questions about wills, wishes, accounts, and access can turn a sacred time into confusion and conflict.
Out of walking through this multiple times, listeners are gently urged to see basic preparation not as morbid but as a quiet love letter that says, “I know this will be hard for you; let me ease what I can.” That might look like creating a simple will or trust, naming a health care proxy, setting up life insurance or funds, and keeping a list of important accounts and passwords where a trusted person can find it. She shares that her own instructions, insurance, funeral details, burial information, and more, are printed and stored on her computer so her family will not have to guess.
If you have had to handle affairs for someone who did not prepare, you are not alone; the invitation is to let that story teach you rather than harden you. Preparation is framed as love in action: a gift of clarity so that, when the time comes, your people are freer to grieve, remember, and honor you without drowning in logistics.
Practices to Live and Remember
Practice 1: Name What They Left You
This practice invites you to choose one person you are missing right now and name, in concrete detail, what they left you. It could be a habit, a phrase, a way of cooking, a certain kind of courage, or even a “terrible dad joke” that still makes you smile. Take a few minutes to write down three specific things they gave you that still live in you today, and, if you are able, say one of them out loud as a quiet thank you.
Practice 2: Love Out Loud Now
Grief often reveals how much we wish we had said or done while we had the chance. This practice gently asks you not to wait for a crisis or goodbye to express love. Let the loss you have known reshape how you show up for the people who are still here: send the message you keep postponing, speak the words of appreciation you usually assume they already know, or give a simple, intentional act of presence, a call, a visit, a shared laugh today.
Practice 3: Create a Quiet Love Letter
Here, preparation becomes a spiritual and emotional practice rather than a bureaucratic chore. Choose one small step you can take to make things easier for the people who will one day care for your affairs, a document you can create, a list you can organize, or a conversation you can have about your wishes. The aim is not perfection but clarity, giving both you and your loved ones a bit more peace when the time comes.
Key Takeaways
The ache of missing someone is not a sign of weakness; it is proof that the love and connection were real and still alive in you.
You are a mosaic of the people who have loved, challenged, and shaped you, and their imprint lives on in your voice, your choices, and the way you show up in the world.
Grief can become a teacher that invites you to love out loud now and to prepare with care, so those who remain can grieve without being overwhelmed by logistics.
Rise Into Action
Beneath the Story:
This reflection reveals our deep longing to be seen, held, and remembered, and how losing “our people” can call us to live more honestly, love more fully, and extend the same care to ourselves and others that they once extended to us.
Gentle Reflection Prompt:
How has losing someone that you loved changed the way you love the people still living, still in your presence, still interacting with you day in and day out?
Until next time ... keep listening for the higher note.
Say.
Be.
And it is.
