By Meghan Fitzpatrick, Hospice & Palliative Care Representative
Old Colony Hospice & Palliative Care
In the last couple of months, I experienced an unexpected loss that left me angry in a way I had never felt before. Most of the loss I have encountered in my life and in my work has carried at least some sense of order to it. When an older loved one dies, there is often comfort in knowing they lived a full life. There is peace in believing they are no longer suffering. Even in grief, there can still be meaning woven into the loss.
But losing someone young and unexpectedly is different.
There was no explanation I could make peace with. No comforting narrative. No neat lesson waiting for me on the other side. It felt senseless and unfair and I was furious about it. For the first time in my life, my faith did not feel comforting. It felt fragile.
What surprised me most was not the anger itself, but the people who stepped into it with me.
In my grief, I reached out to friends and colleagues who stood beside me unflinchingly. They did not try to fix it or explain it away. They simply stayed. One of those people was one of the amazing chaplains at Old Colony Hospice. In one conversation, she told me to keep talking to God exactly as I was. Angry, confused, heartbroken. She told me that if I kept talking, eventually God would speak back.
I remember thinking it was a sweet idea, but I did not really believe her.
I also confided in a co-worker who has walked through a lot of life with me. She responded with so much kindness and understanding. After talking with her, I went for a run to try and clear my head. Before I started, I put on a silly pop song she had once told me always motivated her. It was catchy and ridiculous and normally I would have half listened to it while zoning out.
But this time, I really heard it.
The song was about someone who had been changed by pain in a way that could never be undone but was beginning to recognize the beauty in the person they had become because of it. I had heard that song a hundred times before, but grief cracked something open in me and suddenly the message landed differently. For the first time in weeks, I felt something shift.
Not healing exactly. But perspective.
Faith is easy when life unfolds the way you think it should. It is easy to feel spiritually grounded when the people you love are safe and healthy and everything makes sense. Faith after something falls apart is entirely different. It is messy and angry and full of questions that may never be answered.
But I think that is where real faith begins.
A lump of coal becomes a diamond under pressure. Somehow, through all of this pain, my faith has become clearer and more beautiful than it was before. Not because my grief disappeared, but because it forced me to see what had been surrounding me all along.
My loss shined a light on my gifts. The people who love me fiercely. The co-workers who stop whatever they are doing when someone is hurting. The privilege of working in a place filled with people who understand how to hold each other up through heartbreak.
I realized faith is not the same thing as religion and it is not even necessarily the same thing as God. Faith, at least as I feel it now, is trust. It is like falling from a plane with a professional skydiver strapped to your back. You are not in control and that feeling is terrifying. But there is someone or something wiser than you holding the rip cord, knowing exactly when to pull it so you can land safely where you need to be.
I don’t think I could have understood that kind of faith without first questioning everything I believed. Grief forced me into unfamiliar territory where easy answers no longer worked. But somewhere in that uncertainty, I discovered something important. Faith is not about pretending pain makes sense. It is about continuing forward anyway. Sometimes grief does not destroy faith at all. Sometimes it deepens it.
About the Author: Meghan Fitzpatrick is a business development representatives at Old Colony Hospice & Palliative Care. She has a strong background in assisted living and dementia care. She is also a trained support group facilitator for the Alzheimer’s Association. Her compassion and knowledge make her a vital part of Old Colony Hospice’s outreach efforts. She is a trusted resource in the community, connecting with families, providers, and community partners throughout the region and can be reached at mfitzpatrick@oldcolonyhospice.com.
