What's Beloved is Never Entirely Lost
Grief has a way of rearranging our sense of time, our values, and even our understanding of ourselves. In the disorientation after loss, developing a writing practice can become a lifeline, a meditation, a grounding, and ultimately—if we commit—a discovery of who we are now that “everything” has changed.
At the Clementina Collective, my tagline, “where no one writes alone,” becomes especially important in the context of grief because, as David Kessler taught us, “grief demands a witness.” My Tuesday morning class began with three grieving women who wanted to write. One published a book — So This Is Grief: When Breathing Hurts, Love Songs Suck, and Good Days Come With Guilt—you can check it out here. Then, she kept going. P.S. I’ve been thanked to the moon for gifting this book to grieving people. Just an idea.
Another writer turned a grieving, overbearing mother into one of the sassiest heroines I've seen. I mean, her meddling, while annoying AF to her children, destroys a sex-trafficking ring! Talk about finding the fab in our flaws… It’s been amazing to watch this author grow and heal. She’s in negotiations with an agent as we speak!
A first-time writer created a protagonist fighting to save her father from cancer while clinging to the last strands of her childhood, showing us, among other treasures, that anticipatory grief is real.
All different. All worthy. All found a safe space to explore in my class.
And then there's our newest writer. She's working through the loss of a sister long gone, and too soon. She’s retrieving the parts of herself she thought died with her beloved sibling on that tragic day so long ago. She brings her whole, tender heart to class—and I'm here for it.
It's because of her that I decided to write this piece and share it with you. I invited her into this class because I knew she needed it. I was lucky enough to be in conversation with her, though, and when the time was right, I knew I had just the thing. And in less than six months with us, I've seen profound healing in her. I want that for you, too.
If you're wondering if joining us might be for you, or someone you know, let me share what I've learned from walking beside these women and from my own experience: Meaning-making is central to grief healing—but not in the way we often think. In this class, we understand that grief isn't something to "get over." We won’t shrug our shoulders and say, “Everything happens for a reason, right?”
For many grievers, forced silver linings can feel invalidating, or deeply hurtful, like someone offering a bandaid for a gaping wound, and then being offended when you call them out on their insensitivity, their lack of clarity.
Instead, we help you integrate. We have deep compassion for the fact that you can heal and still hurt. Healing through writing means finding a way to carry the loss forward that makes you more authentically you.
As I often say, if becoming authentic were easy, everyone would do it.
So we ask hard questions: What does this loss mean? What can I do with it? How can I be with it? How does it change who I am? How can I carry “us” forward?
Writing through grief can help you move the stagnant energy, recognizing what you can resuscitate and what you need to learn to let go of, transforming it into art that's alive with meaning, honesty, and possibility.
We’ll use questions like: How do I live in a world where this happened? What parts of me survived/thrived? What did I learn about love, about fragility, about what I truly value? Where does what's beloved still live in me? How can I turn it into poetry?
This is how you alchemize your story.
Writing is one of the most powerful tools for becoming authentic and making meaning. When you write about grief (of a loved one, a relationship, a part of yourself, or a vanishing world)—you're actively constructing a narrative. You're deciding what the loss means, how it fits into the larger story of your life, and who you're becoming because of it. You're making beauty from pain by letting it teach you something true. You're giving birth to something new.
My students aren't "journaling their feelings," though there is a time and a place for that. They're shaping grief into art, character, and story. They're deciding what it means by choosing what to show and what to let go. And chances are, what they make will help them realize what's beloved is never entirely lost. Though it has probably changed form.
Eventually, writers realize that every sentence that hurts to write carries a seed of healing. When your words pierce the armor around another person's heart, you help them heal, too. Through shared tears, grief becomes the conduit for connection. Universal truths deepen and speed healing, and that's part of what we're doing over here at The Clementina Collective. We’re healing, and we hold it together, together.
I promise I won't pressure you to "find the lesson" or "see the gift" too soon. I know from experience how harmful that can be. You cannot rush meaning. Sometimes the most honest thing to say is, 'This is senseless.' This is unbearable. I don't know what it means yet. And write your way through. I'll be right here while you do.
Real meaning emerges organically when you're ready—often through the very act of writing, by sitting with the grief long enough to let it speak. Sitting with people who are patient enough to hold space for you and wise enough to bear witness is pure gold.
If you're writing through loss right now, don't worry about perfection or having to show up in some sort of way. Healing isn’t a performance. I just need you to show up and be present. Then you can let your grief speak in fragments, in whispers, in color and metaphor. It may be hard to let yourself at first, but the other people in class will permit you to experiment. Let the process be messy, alive, and true for you. There’s no judgment here. You are doing sacred work.
So write it down. Let it be raw. Let it be real. And when you're ready—let me see what you're making. I never take your sharing your heart with me–especially when it feels broken–for granted.
In the end, writing through grief isn't about leaving pain behind. It's about carrying it forward, with the beauty, grace, and wisdom only you have.
If you feel ready to write your way through, and you think my class may be for you, I'm happy to hop on a call. Because of the sensitive nature of the work we do inside, every person is vetted. Just e-mail me to ask for a time, and we’ll find one that works for both of us.
Sending you love, especially during this holiday season, when the world at large and our worlds within can feel like worlds apart. This too is its own kind of grief.
Always in love,
Clementina