An Honest Insight into Grief, Healing, and Rising Again

Grief doesn’t come with instructions. It doesn’t care about your age, your plans, or what else you’ve got going on. And for women, it often shows up with an extra weight — because while we’re grieving, we’re also expected to keep everything and everyone else together.

I've seen it in people close to me. I've felt it in small ways in my own life — that hollow feeling, the world moving while you stand still. But nothing prepared me for the kind of loss that my friend Hannah Candela endured.

She lost both of her brothers. Her oldest brother, Tony, passed away in 2016 from an overdose when she was just 14. Then a few years later, her other brother Nick — the one she grew up with, only 17 months apart — died from COVID. Two brothers. Two tragedies. One after another. And somehow, she’s still here. Still standing. Still showing up for herself and others.

Talking to her about it made me emotional. The strength she showed while telling her story wasn’t loud or dramatic — it was quiet and steady, shaped by years of heartbreak and healing. She spoke with the kind of clarity that only someone who’s been through the fire and survived can carry.

“We need to be allowed to feel all of our emotions,” she told me. “And we’re also allowed to tell people that they are not entitled to our emotions. I think that, as a woman, is one of the hardest things — especially being someone who is not super emotional I felt swallowed by my grief. And because I wasn’t emotional, so many people were coming to me to talk about how emotional they were.”

As women, we’re often told we have to be strong. That we have to hold the family together, that we should be “resilient,” that we can’t fall apart. But no one really talks about how exhausting that is. How lonely it can feel. How much pressure there is to seem okay — even when we’re shattered.

“We are allowed to act however we think is going to get us through that day,” Hannah added. “And we are not responsible for anyone else’s emotions. We are only responsible for our  grief. And we’re not responsible to carry on the legacy of anyone we’re mourning for.”

That, to me, was the heart of what this story is about. Women — especially young women — deserve to be seen in their grief, not expected to manage it on everyone else’s behalf. They deserve space to feel it all: the silence, the rage, the numbness, the aching, the confusion. And they deserve the time it takes to figure it out, without anyone rushing them to “move on.”

Hannah’s story reminded me that strength isn’t about pretending you're fine. It’s about allowing yourself to feel everything — and still choosing to get up each day. Some days that might look like going to work, calling a friend, or laughing at a dumb show. Other days, it might just be brushing your teeth. Both are valid. Both are enough.

A pair of Hannah’s Dr. Martens with Nicks tattoo on them.

"They are my reminder that every step of the way the lessons he has taught me are with me.” -Hannah Candela

Now, Hannah is channeling her pain into purpose. She’s currently writing a book titled “Conversations with My Therapist... That I’ll Never Have” — a deeply personal, unfiltered reflection on grief, especially aimed at young people who are struggling to make sense of their pain. It’s raw, honest, and intentional: a space to talk about the feelings we’re told to push down, and the emotions that don’t always come out pretty.

Through her writing, Hannah hopes to break the silence around grief — and the pressure to “move on” quickly or quietly. The book is her way of giving others permission to grieve in whatever way they need, for however long it takes.

“We should be able to grieve in our own way,” she says. “And take as long as we need.”

Her book will challenge the idea that there’s a “right” way to grieve. She wants people to know that grief shows up differently in everyone — and that every form it takes is valid. Whether you cry for weeks or don’t cry at all, whether you talk about it nonstop or keep it buried for years, you’re not doing it wrong. You’re just doing what you need to survive.

To any woman reading this who’s grieving something — a person, a version of yourself, a life you thought you’d have — I see you. You don’t need to be perfect to be powerful. You don’t need to “get over it” to move forward. And you sure as hell don’t need to do it alone.

You're allowed to fall apart and still come back stronger. You’re allowed to rise in your own time, in your own way. Just like Hannah is. Just like so many women do every single day — quietly, fiercely, beautifully.