By Melissa Fors Shackelford

Last year, I lost my mother and my younger sister to cancer. In the same week.

The day my sister died, I stayed with my mother. We sat on her sofa. The TV was on but the sound was off. Neither of us was watching. There was nothing to say. I sat beside her as she faced the unimaginable loss of her youngest child. Days later, she was gone too.

I have thought about that sofa a lot since then. About what it means to sit with someone in the worst moment of their life and have absolutely nothing to offer except your presence. No wisdom. No solutions. No words that could possibly help. Just the simple fact of being there.

People keep asking me how I got through it. And I understand why they ask. It is a natural question. But I've come to believe it's the wrong one. Because "getting through" implies that grief is a passage with an exit on the other side. In my experience, it isn't. What changes is not that the grief ends. What changes is what you have to hold onto while you carry it.

For me, that has always been purpose.

I have spent more than two decades working at the intersection of healthcare, marketing, and leadership. I founded Shackelford Strategies after senior roles at organizations including Optum and Cigna's Express Scripts, and I wrote a book called Harnessing Purpose that became an Amazon number one bestseller. I have spoken to healthcare associations, marketing leaders, women's leadership conferences, and ethics forums about what it means to lead and communicate with intention.

But purpose, as I actually live it, is not a strategy. It is not a brand positioning exercise or a mission statement on a wall. It is the question underneath everything: What am I here for, and is how I'm spending my time an honest answer to that question?

That question sounds philosophical. In practice, it is deeply physical. On the days when I stayed connected to what mattered most to me, I felt it in my body. I slept a little better. I could breathe more fully. I was not just surviving the day. I was actually living it.

Research from Harvard backs this up. A clear sense of purpose is associated with better stress management, improved sleep, and greater longevity. I did not need the research to tell me this. I had already felt the difference. But it helped to understand that what I was experiencing was not just personal. It was biological. Purpose does not just change how we think. It changes how we function.

This is the question I find myself returning to most often, especially in the past year.

Grief does not respond to productivity or willpower or any of the tools that work in ordinary life. You cannot outwork it or reason your way through it. What I have found, both personally and in years of conversations about meaning and resilience, is that grief becomes survivable when it is held inside something larger than the loss itself.

For me, that larger thing is purpose.

When I lost my mother and sister, I did not stop caring about the things I had always cared about. I still wanted to show up for people. I still believed that when one person says the hard thing out loud, someone else feels less alone. I still wanted to use whatever platform I have to make that happen. Purpose did not erase the grief. But it gave me somewhere to stand while I carried it.

Purpose after loss does not look like inspiration. It often looks ordinary. Walking around the lake with a friend. Showing up for someone else who is struggling. Letting people see that it is okay to talk about how hard things really are. These are not grand gestures. But they are the gestures that, strung together over time, constitute a life that is still moving forward.

If you are wondering how to find purpose after losing someone you love, I do not think the answer is to go looking for it in some abstract way. I think you find it by asking what still matters to you. And then doing one small thing in that direction. Not because it will fix the grief. Because it will give you something real to hold onto while the grief does what grief does.

I have thought about this question carefully, and I want to answer it honestly rather than with the usual reassurances.

What helped me most was not advice or perspective or time. What helped me most was people showing up.

My cousins and my college roommate drove for hours to attend two funerals in one week.  No one had the right words. But they came. Their presence did what words could not.

That is the thing about grief. It does not need to be fixed or explained or reframed. It needs to be witnessed. The people who helped me most were the ones who simply showed up.

What I would say to anyone trying to support someone through grief: do not wait until you know what to say. You will never know what to say, because there is nothing to say. Just show up. That is almost always enough.

And for anyone moving through grief themselves: let people in. I know it is easier not to. But the moments when people showed up for me, even when I had nothing to offer in return, were the moments when I remembered that life was still happening and I was still part of it.

Earlier this year, I gave my first TEDx talk at TEDxDuluth. The talk is called How to Make Purpose Your Lifeline When Life Gets Hard, and it is the most honest thing I have ever said out loud in public.

I talk about my mother and sister. About my brother and going to treatment in 988. About the three anchors that have held me together through everything: resilience, presence, and hope. And about what I have come to understand, after 37 years of sobriety and a lifetime of work in healthcare and leadership, about why purpose is not a luxury for when life is good. It is what carries you through when it isn't.

I made this talk for anyone who has ever wondered what holds people together when life falls apart. For people in recovery, and for the families who love them. For anyone sitting with grief right now and not sure how to find their footing. 

I talk about my mother and sister. About my brother and going to treatment i988. About the three anchors that have held me together through everything: resilience, presence, and hope. And about what I have come to understand, after 37 years of sobriety and a lifetime of work in healthcare and leadership, about why purpose is not a luxury for when life is good. It is what carries you through when it isn't.

You can watch the full TEDx talk here: How to Make Purpose Your Lifeline When Life Gets Hard

I am a healthcare strategist, keynote speaker, and the author of Harnessing Purpose: A Marketer's Guide to Inspiring Connection, which became an Amazon number one bestseller. I founded Shackelford Strategies after more than two decades in senior marketing and leadership roles at organizations including Optum, Cigna's Express Scripts, and Hazelden Betty Ford.

I speak for healthcare associations, women's leadership conferences, ethics forums, and marketing and communications organizations across the country, including the American Marketing Association, the American Hospital Association's SHSMD, and the University of Minnesota Women's Leadership Conference. I serve on the boards of Asbury Communities, Women's Health Leadership TRUST, and the AHA's SHSMD Advisory Board.

My work sits at the intersection of purpose, integrity, and communication. I believe that the same principles that help individuals get back up after loss are the ones that help organizations lead with clarity and build lasting trust. The personal and the professional are not as separate as we sometimes pretend.

If you would like to bring this conversation to your organization, conference, or community, I would love to hear from you.

Melissa Fors Shackelford is the founder of Shackelford Strategies, author of Harnessing Purpose, and a keynote speaker on purpose, resilience, healthcare, and ethical leadership. 

Watch her TEDxDuluth talk: How to Make Purpose Your Lifeline When Life Gets Hard

Learn more: melissaforsshackelford.com