Bloom where you are planted -- even when the soil is grief.
Not because I forgot.
But because the pain is still loud.
I did not return to studying because life was stable.
I did not seek another certification because I had extra time or clarity or ease.
I came back here because something inside me broke -- and I refused to let it stay broken without meaning.
There is a kind of grief no one prepares you for.
Not the grief of death.
But the grief of distance.
Of being slowly set aside by the very people you once held closest to your heart.
Of feeling misunderstood, misjudged, and somehow reduced to the sum of your lowest moments.
Of realizing that love, even maternal love, is not always enough to keep a relationship whole.
I live with that kind of grief.
Every day.
I carry the silence.
I carry the absence of ordinary things -- conversations, laughter, small updates that used to come so freely.
I carry the weight of words that were said, and the heavier weight of what was never said back.
And at night, when the world grows still and there is no more distraction left to hold me together, I find myself speaking quietly to God.
“Have mercy. Please make this stop.”
There were nights I whispered,
“Tama na, Lord -- hindi ko na kaya.”
Enough, Lord -- I cannot carry this anymore.
And sometimes -- if I am honest -- it felt like heaven was quiet.
Like His face was turned away.
Like I was left alone inside a pain that did not know how to end.
It is from that place that I chose this path.
Not from strength.
But from survival.
Because if I must sit with grief -- then I will learn it.
If I must walk through loss -- then I will understand it.
If I must endure the breaking of what I once believed would never break -- then I will not let it be wasted.
I chose Grief Coaching last year -- in January 2025 -- not because my life is free from sorrow, but because sorrow has lived with me long enough to teach me its language.
And this year, I am continuing that path by working toward becoming an End-of-Life Doula -- not because I have all the answers about death, but because I have come to understand something about presence.
About sitting with what hurts.
About not turning away when things become heavy, complicated, or unfinished.
This is not just another certification.
This is a quiet vow.
That no one I encounter in their final days, or in the aching days after loss, will feel as alone as I have felt in mine.
That I will sit beside them -- not as someone who has conquered pain, but as someone who has learned how to stay.
Every time I sit at this table, I remember.
I remember why I opened my laptop again.
Why I enrolled.
Why I am choosing discipline over despair.
It is because pain, when left alone, can consume.
But pain, when given purpose, can transform.
I do not know yet who I will become at the end of this journey.
But I know this:
I did not choose this path because life was kind.
I chose it because life was not -- and I am determined to become someone who is.
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