Grateful for life. Grateful for loss.

When death also means rebirth.

Weeks after pancreatic cancer took my husband in 2017, I got introduced to a widower through a message he wrote to me listing the things he wished he knew when his wife died of cancer a few years earlier. I can’t find the message — I believe it landed in an old email account I’ve since deactivated — but I for sure remember the feelings it brought.

Comfort. Understanding. Hope.

Perspective is often what has kept me from getting lost in the challenges I’ve faced, whether they’re everyday stuff or something more serious, lasting. When the weight on my chest gets too heavy, I close my eyes, take a deep breath and remember that life, with all its beauty and tribulations, requires constant redirecting. It requires restructuring and rewriting, much like the first draft of a multi-layered story or this memoir I’ve written. (I’m not ready to talk about the memoir yet because I don’t know exactly how to communicate it, so I’m closing my eyes for now, taking deep breaths and waiting for clarity.)

The widower and I have become close friends. Loss creates instant connections, but there’s more than that between us. Like me, he gets that death is part of life and refuses to bury this chapter of his own story because it might make others uncomfortable. It’s not like we’re on some kind of mission to normalize anything. Our intent is to present ourselves as who we are, even the broken bits. To hide the loss that is a part of our story is to smother us.

The widower lives in London. Our conversations have mostly unfolded on WhatsApp; the thread is full of his words of wisdom. I’m fortunate to have a friend like him. I’m also grateful for the lessons I’ve uncovered in this life I’ve built after everything changed. As time became the space between today and what happened late that night on Nov. 1, 2017 — and as the unbending support of my close circle friends firmed up the ground beneath me — I’ve come to accept that death isn’t an absolutist event, but a shape-shifting lesson. Yes, it came into my life suddenly and unexpectedly. Yes, it still strikes me as cruel and wholly unfair. Today, though, I can also see death as a gift because it’s what forced me onto a rewarding path of rediscovery.

While I don’t have the widower’s original words to me, I can share a recent message he sent, something he told me he’d come across on Instagram:

Trauma also leaves something behind. A sharper edge, a deeper soul, a vision that sees what others miss. The world breaks you, yes, but in the breaking, it teaches you to rebuild—not as you were, but as someone who understands the cracks. Healing isn’t about “moving on”; it’s about mining the wreckage and finding gold. The pain doesn’t disappear—it becomes part of your armor, your art, your voice. And suddenly, what almost destroyed you turns into the very thing that sets you apart.

“This made me think of you,” he wrote. I hope it makes you think of yourself, too. Pain is fuel. Loss is an invitation for improvement. Our vulnerabilities are our strength. Embrace them all, redefine them and, with that, set yourself free.

With love and purpose always,

Fernanda.