When Healing Needs to Come First

Healing doesn't just take a little time, it also takes commitment to get started and to complete the process.  ~ Sereda Aleta Dailey

There are times in life when we have to listen to the wisdom we so often offer to others: healing takes time, and we cannot always hurry the process.

After many years of writing for Grief Healing, sending a weekly newsletter, and sharing newly written articles with you, I need to take some of my own advice.

I will be stepping away for a while as I undergo ankle replacement surgery and begin the long process of recovery. This is not an easy decision for me. Writing about grief, loss, love, and healing has been such a meaningful part of my life. More than that, the connection I have had with readers over the years has meant more to me than I can easily put into words.

Some of you have written to me in the midst of the most painful moments of your lives. You have shared the deaths of husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, dear friends and beloved animal companions. You have told me about the losses that changed everything—and about the small ways you have found to keep going.

I have treasured those letters and those connections.

So it feels strange to say that, for a while, I need to put the writing aside and concentrate on something much more ordinary and personal: my own recovery from ankle replacement surgery.

I know from experience—and from everything you have taught me—that healing cannot be forced. There will be surgery, rehabilitation, frustration, progress, setbacks, and hopefully, eventually, more comfortable days. I need to give myself permission to be patient with that process.

That means there will be no weekly newsletter for a while, and I will not be posting new articles during my recovery.

But Grief Healing is not going away.

The website and blog will remain here, with many years of articles and resources available whenever you need them. Perhaps some of those older pieces will find their way to you at exactly the moment you need them. Sometimes an article written years ago can speak to us in a way we could not have heard it before.

And I hope that, when both my body and my mind are ready, I will find my way back to the keyboard.

I don't know exactly when that will be. I'm learning, once again, that some things simply cannot be put on a timetable.

For now, I am going to step away—not because I have stopped caring, but because I need to care for myself.

Thank you for understanding. Thank you for reading. Thank you for trusting me with your stories and allowing Grief Healing to be part of your lives.

And most of all, thank you for being here with me.

This isn't goodbye.

It's simply giving myself a little time to heal.

With love and gratitude,

Marty 💕

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