Love And Grief, Side By Side

Love doesn’t disappear when a life ends; it changes form, echoes through memory, and asks us to carry it with care. Kerry opens her heart about losing her brother, tracing the messy, holy overlap where grief and devotion meet. From hospital rooms and hard conversations to late-night prayers and quiet moments of knowing, she explores how faith, family, and the words we speak can soften the sharp edges of loss without denying the pain.

We walk through the realities many Black women face after a death: stepping into logistics, holding space for others, and pushing our own sorrow to the margins. Kerry names that pattern and offers another way—healthy grief that honors both the loved one and the self. She talks about rejecting toxic positivity, meeting people where they are, and recognizing how language shapes our days. If every word is a seed, what are we planting when we speak about our lives, our hopes, and our healing?

This conversation holds tender details from her brother’s final days, including the moment of peace that followed his last breath. It also holds practices you can use now: simple rituals for remembrance, boundaries that protect your heart, and permission to let joy and ache share the same room. Grief is love’s echo, not its enemy. By allowing both to stand together, we build a resilient life—one that remembers, honors, and keeps moving with grace.

If this story meets you where you are, share it with someone who needs the reminder that they’re not alone. And if you have your own story of love and loss, connect with us on Instagram at the Melanin Unicorn Podcast and tell us what helped you keep going. Subscribe, leave a review, and help this message find the people who need it most.

Chapters

• 0:12 Opening And Episode Focus
• 0:28 Naming Love And Grief
• 1:50 Defining Grief Through Love
• 3:00 The Roller Coaster Of Loss
• 4:09 My Brother’s Story And Hospital Days
• 5:21 Faith, Doctors, And Agency
• 6:17 How Black Women Carry Grief
• 7:44 Choosing A Healthier Way To Grieve
• 8:08 Words, Faith, And Manifesting
• 13:09 The Night He Passed And Peace
• 15:13 Lessons: Let Love And Grief Coexist
• 16:46 Closing, Dedication, And Community

Transcript

Kerry: 0:12

Hello, hello, hello tribe! Welcome back to another episode of the Melanin Unicorn Podcast. This podcast is created for my beautiful black fellow queens. And I'm your host, Kerry. And today we are going to talk about one of the most profound and universal experiences, the intertwined relationship between love and grief. This is going to be an episode that is not like so cheery. Um I will be talking about a personal um experience that I have dealt with and I'm still currently dealing with. And with that, let's start the show. Love and grief. Grief and love. Two sides of the same coin, they say, but at first glance, grief might seem like the shadow of love. A heavy, painful thing we try to avoid. But what if grief is not the opposite of love? What if instead it's a testament to it? Today I'm going to speak about losing my brother and how I'm standing in the intersection of grief and love, love and grief. And maybe just maybe find comfort in understanding why these two emotions are so deeply connected. To understand grief, we must first understand love. Love is an attachment, connection, and meaning. And when we love someone, they become a part of our identity. We share laughter, struggles, and moments that define who we are. Love weaves itself into the fabric of our lives. But what happens when that bond is severed? When you pull the thread, the fabric begins to unravel. That, my dear sisters, is grief. Losing my brother and what that entails has been like a roller coaster that doesn't stop. Some days I'm laughing, joking, and smiling, and on other days the ache is so unbearable that I feel it all over my body. I feel it in my body. I haven't really cried all that much, and maybe that is the problem because sometimes I feel like I'm in disbelief, if I'm being honest. It isn't real. My phone will ring or text will come through, and I'll exhale a sigh of relief and say that it was all a bad dream. But then reality sets in. And I realize no, he is really gone. And the only thing that remains are the memories of loss, which brings both joy and pain and pain and joy. My brother had a heart attack in September 2023. And um we didn't live in the same state. So that already came with its own stresses because I know I needed to get to him. You see, my brother is the oldest, and um he's the only boy. And um always, always, always looked out. And his saying was, I don't care what's going on with me, as long as you and your sister, my sisters are good, I'm good. That was that was his saying. And um, there was there was serious neurological damage, and so the doctors sent like, oh, you know, because they're so quick. Oh, you know, um, he doesn't know who you are, he doesn't know where he is, and I had to rebuke them in the name of Jesus and tell them, get behind the Satan, because he knows who I am, he knows where he is. One thing that I'm gonna say about this, and then we we are we're gonna carry on with the episode is do not let doctors tell you or dictate to you anything about your family and your loved ones. Because I always say that God has the first say, He has the middle say, and he has the final say. Not the human doctors. So grief is a natural process of life. I know this, and I know you do too, because black women often lack a space to grieve properly. We do it in spurts, as I just mentioned. Because we have to take care of the deceased business, as I had to take care of my brother's business, you know. Then you're tending to other family members and their friends. My brother wasn't married and he didn't have children. But if you are dealing with a family member who is, if they are married and they have children, that's another thing that we often have to deal with. So what happens? We put our grief on the back burner, and that's crazy, right? Because when I look back over family and friends I've lost, I've seen the pattern of my grief on hold. It will be doled out piece by piece over time, which is unhealthy. I didn't know I would face this, and I wonder, how am I going to do it this time? I knew I had to grieve healthily, a way that will honor my brother and myself. So my brother didn't want to be on this side of eternity anymore, and he often spoke about that, that he was just tired. Um, and I would often say to him, You have to be careful what you say because life and death is is in the power of the tongue. And my brother understood that because he was a follower of the way, he was a follower of Jesus, he was in relationship. But there were things in his life that he believed that he couldn't come back from. And that was also a lie, right? Of the enemy. Um, you know, when you say certain things to yourself over and over and over, that becomes your reality. And I spoke about that in a prior episode. And so we have to be careful what we say out of our mouths, right? And I never did toxic positivity with my brother because I understood, because you know, I remember, you know, the things that that happened, right? So I never wanted to do toxic positivity. I think it's awful when when people do that, so please don't do it. But I met him where he was, you know, again, and just wanting to just tell him that we loved him and God loves him, and God loved him first, you know, before he was even a thought in, you know, in my parents' mind. Right. But here's the thing. I often find myself not ready to let go. I believed we had more time. There were moves that I needed to make so that we can all be back together again. And then that phone call came, and my entire world turned upside down. Because my brother had the heart attack, and he was actually dead, and the paramedics resuscitated him, and I know for a fact that my brother hated that when he opened his eyes and saw that he was still here, and I'm laughing because I can only imagine his thought process. Right. Because as I said before, you know, my brother was done with this side of eternity and wanted to leave. You know, he wanted to be absent from the body so he can be with Jesus. And again, you know, in talking with him, I would often say when we would have our conversations that wherever you speak, that is what will manifest in your life. So people think of manifesting as only one way. But manifesting happens all the time. Every time you speak, you are manifesting all day long. Anything you say out of your mouth will come to pass. So I always tell people to be careful, especially if you are speaking negatively over your life. So we have to be careful, we have to be careful, we have to we have to learn how to reframe our thoughts. And the Lord said to me that I have violated what he wanted because I'm imposing my will upon him because I didn't want him to leave. And so, I had to repent and ask for forgiveness. So, my brother took his final breath, April 4th, 2024. And it was 1: 30 a.m. in the morning, and I know when he left because I felt his spirit glide past me. And I immediately woke up and I knew. I knew, and then my phone rang. And it was he went quietly and peacefully as if he was asleep. And that's what I thank God for because I didn't want him to have any pain. And God gave him peace without pain. And I'm so thankful for that. I'm so grateful for that. So, my fellow sisters, what can we take away from this? Grief and love, love and grief are not enemies. They are partners in this human journey. Grief is love's echo. It's proof, it's a reminder. It's messy, painful, and unpredictable. But it's also a sign that we have truly cared, truly connected, truly lived, truly loved. And if you're grieving as I am, know that it's okay to feel the weight of it. It's okay to cry, to laugh at a memory, to miss someone so much it aches. And it's okay to let that grief coexist with the joy of the love you shared. Thank you so much for joining me on this heartfelt exploration of love and grief. If today's episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need to hear these words. And if you have a story about love and grief, I'd love to hear from you. Reach out to me on my social media, which is my Instagram at the Melanin Unicorn Podcast, and send me a DM and through my website, which should definitely be up and running by the time this episode drops. And until next time, remember love deeply and allow yourself to grieve deeply too. For in that space, we find the essence of what it means to be human. Have a wonderful, remarkable, and magical day. Again, thank you for being here. Thank you for allowing me to express some semblance of my love and grief over the loss of my brother, which this episode is dedicated to him. And remember that I love you. And don't don't don't don't put your own feelings on hold because you matter and you're important. I love you. Bye.