Love Beyond Death: Holding On Through Yearning

Vacations and a few of Kevin's paintings

Love is never just one thing. It appears in many forms—romantic love, the bond between parents and children, the closeness of friendship, and even the affection we feel for places or objects that bring us comfort. Some love feels lighthearted, while others are all-consuming. Some fade, while others only grow stronger with time.

Ancient Greek thinkers gave us words to describe different kinds of love: eros (romantic passion), philia (deep friendship), storge (familial affection), and agape (selfless, unconditional love). Modern psychology confirms this idea: love is more than just an emotion. It's both a feeling and a practice, a choice that is reflected in our actions.

Love is respect. Love is understanding. Love is sacrifice. Love is showing up. It can be spoken in words, given in a gentle touch, revealed in acts of service, or present in silence when no words are needed. At its core, love is not only what we feel but what we do.

When Kevin was born, I felt like I had hit the jackpot. My first child was a girl, and now I have a son. I was overcome by the depth of love that arrives with a new baby. I made sure to say "I love you" often and to show it through actions. We took family vacations, shared laughter, and time together.

I hadn't grown up hearing those words. My mother never said "I love you," and though I didn't hold it against her, I quietly longed to hear those words. That longing shaped me. When I became a parent, I resolved to give my children both words and actions of love.

I poured myself into parenting, protecting them until they could stand on their own, teaching them how to walk through life, and opening doors to possibilities they could choose for themselves. My hope was simple: that they would feel loved and know joy.

Nothing about parenting is perfect, but I have done well in showing my children love. What I never could have imagined was that one day, I would have to say goodbye to my beloved son at just 33 years old.

Kevin's Love Language

Kevin loved life. He surrounded himself with friends and carried himself with humility, kindness, and quiet strength. His deepest love was music. It was both his comfort and his language—expressing joy, sorrow, and everything in between.

He also loved creating with his hands, including painting and woodworking. After his death, his artwork fills almost every room in my home. As another act of remembrance, I commissioned a portrait of him with his sitar, an instrument he treasured. That painting hangs in my living room, a daily reminder of his presence and the love he shared.

I still go through Kevin's belongings from time to time, deciding what I can release and what I'm not yet ready to let go. Love makes those choices tender. Kevin's love was steady and thoughtful. Even when we disagreed, he was never disrespectful. He remembered every birthday, every Mother's Day, always with gratitude and warmth. His kindness left an imprint that remains.

The most painful form of love is grief, the love that rises when the one we cherish is gone. Grief is love's confusion: how do we keep loving someone who has died?

Grief is love's anger: the ache of what has been destroyed. Grief is love's refusal to let go.

It is not the opposite of love but its shadow at its most relentless form. Some days, grief feels like a nightmare without meaning. But then someone shares a memory, offers kindness, or sits with me in silence, and I remember: grief is love that has nowhere to go.

Yearning

Yearning is one of the most profound experiences of grief. Researchers describe it as an unsatisfied, intense, future-oriented desire for the person who has died, a longing that stretches toward a reality that can no longer exist. It is so universal that it has inspired centuries of art, poetry, music, and literature. Within psychiatry, yearning is now recognized as one of the defining features of complicated grief (CG), where longing becomes severe, persistent, and disabling.

Cognitively, yearning often shows up as "what if" thoughts. We can only imagine what life would be like if the loss had been prevented. We replay moments, searching for ways the story could have ended differently. Sometimes we even construct vivid alternative realities where our loved one is still alive, still calling, still walking through the door.

Emotionally, yearning is bittersweet. It can stir warmth, affection, and tenderness toward the one we miss, but it also carries a sharp edge of frustration and pain because we will never see them in this life. Studies show that yearning is even more common than sadness or anger after a death. It's often tied to depression, anxiety, and loneliness.

On the deepest level, yearning is the soul's protest against absence. It is love refusing to be silenced, even in the face of death. Psychologists Paul K. Maciejewski and Holly Prigerson found that yearning is not only natural but often the dominant emotion after loss. That finding resonates with me because my grief has not been only about sadness but also longing.

I yearn for Kevin's voice, his laugh, his presence at the dinner table. I yearn for the ordinary days as much as the milestones. I imagine the conversations we might have had, the music he would have created, the man he would have become in the years since his passing. This yearning is both agony and gift. Agony, because it reminds me of all that has been taken. Gift, because it keeps love alive.

In grief, yearning becomes the purest expression of love. It is a form of love that refuses to die, even when the person is gone. Yearning tells me that Kevin mattered, that he still matters, and that the bond between us cannot be broken by death.

When someone dies, their absence can feel almost as if they are still alive. The empty chair, the silent phone, and the quiet room are reminders of both loss and love. We dislike these reminders because they expose the truth: they are gone. We treasure them because they remind us of how deeply we loved and still love.

Losing Kevin left me yearning so intensely I sometimes wondered if I was losing my sanity. Yet strangely, death has also deepened my capacity to love Kevin, my family, my friends, and even strangers who suffer. Love doesn't die. It transforms.

For years, grief was framed as "letting go." But psychologists now recognize the value of continuing bonds and finding ways to keep a relationship alive through memory, ritual, and presence.

Love does not end at death. We write their names. We visit their favorite places. We tell their stories. Kevin may no longer be here physically, but my love for him lives on in the way I remember him and in the way I love others more openly because of him.

Love Transformed

Kevin's death transformed my understanding of love. I once thought love was something we poured only into those closest to us. Now I know it grows when shared, stretches when life is painful, and deepens when we are broken. This is evident in the connection I have formed with other bereaved families.

Grief is brutally complicated. It hurts. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, or that you're grieving "wrong." You grieve because you had something beautiful. You grieve because you loved deeply and still do.

Falling in love is always an act of bravery because we are simultaneously aware of its transient nature. We know, even if we don't admit it, that all relationships will eventually end through distance, betrayal, change, or death. Even during good times, we sometimes feel distant or in conflict, revealing a more profound truth about love and loss.

Love carries within it the certainty of loss. This paradox makes love all the more profound: joy and loneliness, connection and distance, hope and heartbreak coexist. Others may walk beside us, but the journey is ultimately ours alone. Philosophers refer to this as existential loneliness, being fundamentally alone in life, despite being deeply connected to others.

And yet, knowing all this, most of us still choose love. We still risk our hearts. So if you love someone, tell them. Show them in gestures big and small, in forgiveness, in time, in words. When love is both spoken and lived, it creates bonds that endure.

Kevin's life, kindness, music, and love still ripple outward. The love we shared continues to shape me, inspire me, and teach me to love more freely. Love is fragile in how easily people can be taken from us, yet indestructible in how even death cannot erase it.

God's Love

Through it all, I have also come to know God's love more deeply. His love has been my anchor in grief, a constant and unfailing presence. It reminds me that love is not only a human capacity but a divine gift. As 1 John 4:8 says, "God is love."

Even in Kevin's absence, I am not alone. God's love flows through me, sustaining me as I continue to love Kevin, my family, and others with a depth I never thought possible.

Courage lives within us, even in brokenness. Ask for help when you need it, as people care. Forgive, live with gratitude, help others, and hold on to hope. Without love and hope, life grows dark.

A powerful reminder comes from 1 Corinthians 13:

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud… Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth."

And in the end, love remains.