What I Believe Now

Nearly thirteen years ago, my life changed forever when my nephew died.

This isn't a story about grief. It's a story about the beliefs grief gave me—and the beliefs I chose to let go of.

For a long time, I believed my job was simply to survive. I didn't know what to do with a pain that big, so I ran from it. I drank too much. I took drugs. I made choices that didn't reflect the girl I knew I was underneath it all.

I was still raising my children. I still got out of bed each morning. I still smiled when I could. From the outside, I appeared to have it all together. People saw someone who was coping.

But inside, I was simply trying to outrun the unbearable.

People often say, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I don't believe that's true. Sometimes what doesn't kill you nearly does. Grief can bring you to your knees. It can change your body, your mind, your relationships and your sense of safety.

That isn't strength. That's survival.

The world also has a habit of telling us that when someone dies, life goes on. But when you're the one left behind, it doesn't.

The world keeps moving. People return to work. Conversations change. Life quietly resumes.

Yours doesn't.

You're expected to keep functioning, to be strong and to quietly carry the unimaginable.

I was often told how strong I was, and people meant it with kindness. But if I'm honest, I never felt strong. I felt shattered, frightened and exhausted. People saw strength.

I was surviving.

I smiled because I didn't know what else to do. I kept going because my children still needed me. There wasn't another option.

So many of us become quiet—not because we have nothing to say, but because grief doesn't fit neatly into everyday life.

There isn't a day that goes by where I don't think about my sister. I often think about the unbearable pain she has had to learn to live with. Losing my nephew changed my life, but losing her son changed hers in a way I will never fully understand.

Watching someone you love carry that kind of heartbreak changes you. It made me want to understand grief—not to explain it or somehow make sense of it, because I don't think we ever truly can—but to understand what it does to us.

Before all of the guilt, there was love. The kind of love that asks for nothing in return.

My nephew was my one true love.

He was the boy who filled my heart in a way I can't fully put into words. Maybe that's why losing him changed me so completely.

What I didn't realise was that grief had quietly changed the way I saw myself. I became terrified of losing people. I stopped speaking up because I was scared someone would leave. I apologised too quickly. I accepted things I should never have accepted. I made myself smaller because I thought it would keep people close.

The truth is, I was so afraid of losing other people that I became the one person I abandoned.

The grief never asked me to stop living.

Fear did.

Not long afterwards, my body began to struggle. I was diagnosed with autoimmune disease. My body needed medical care, and I'm grateful for the people who helped me through that. But looking back now, I can also see that somewhere underneath all that surviving was the girl I'd forgotten.

For years, I carried a belief that I hadn't done enough for my nephew. I replayed conversations. I questioned myself. I carried guilt because it gave me something to hold onto when nothing made sense.

Today, I don't believe that anymore. Not because I miss him any less, and not because I stopped loving him. I never will.

I changed because I gave myself permission to question the story I'd been telling myself.

Today, I believe he knew he was loved. I believe I loved him with my whole heart. I believe I was the best auntie I knew how to be. Instead of carrying guilt, I choose to carry gratitude—gratitude that I got to know him, and gratitude that I got to love him.

When my dad died a few years later, something shifted inside me. His death didn't make grief easier, but it reminded me how unbelievably short this human life really is. I realised I didn't want fear to decide how I lived anymore.

I wanted to find that girl again.

That meant changing my beliefs.

Today, I don't believe I failed my nephew. I don't believe I have to stay quiet to keep people. I don't believe making myself smaller keeps me safe. And I don't believe I need anyone else's permission to become the person I want to be.

What I do believe is this:

We love enough. We are allowed to grieve. We are allowed to be messy. We are allowed to lose ourselves for a while.

And when we're ready, we're allowed to find our way back.

Changing my beliefs didn't change my past. It changed the way I live, the way I love, the way I speak and the way I see myself.

It changed the future I'm creating.

Maybe that's what growing really is.

Not becoming someone new.

But finding the girl who never stopped being worthy in the first place.

I write this in the hope that it reaches someone who has become so good at surviving that they've forgotten who they were before life hurt them.

If that's you, I hope one day you find your way back to the girl who always deserved to be loved, heard and believed.

She's still there.

I promise.

Love Claire xx

Love yourself more.

Listen to your body.

She Knows. 🤍