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The messy truth about grief | Nora McInerny

Watch the full talk: A clip from Nora McInerny’s TED Talk “We don’t ‘move on’ from grief. We move forward with it” from TEDWomen 2018 In a talk that’s by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, writer and podcaster Nora McInerny shares her hard-earned wisdom about life and death. Her candid approach to something that will, let’s…

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5 years ago

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Watch the full talk:

A clip from Nora McInerny’s TED Talk “We don’t ‘move on’ from grief. We move forward with it” from TEDWomen 2018

In a talk that’s by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, writer and podcaster Nora McInerny shares her hard-earned wisdom about life and death. Her candid approach to something that will, let’s face it, affect us all, is as liberating as it is gut-wrenching. Most powerfully, she encourages us to shift how we approach grief. “A grieving person is going to laugh again and smile again,” she says. “They’re going to move forward. But that doesn’t mean that they’ve moved on.”

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2014 was a big year for me.

Do you ever have that, just like a big year,
like a banner year?

For me, it went like this: October 3, I lost
my second pregnancy.

And then October 8, my dad died of cancer.

And then on November 25, my husband Aaron
died after three years with stage-four glioblastoma,

which is just a fancy word for brain cancer.

So, I’m fun.

Now, since 2014, I will tell you I have remarried
a very handsome man named Matthew, we have

four children in our blended family, we live
in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota,

USA.

We have a rescue dog.

I drive a minivan, like the kind where doors
open and I don’t even touch them.

By any measure, life is really, really good,
but I haven’t “moved on.”

I haven’t moved on, and I hate that phrase
so much, and I understand why other people

do.

Because what it says is that Aaron’s life
and death and love are just moments that I

can leave behind me — and that I probably
should.

And when I talk about Aaron, I slip so easily
into the present tense, and I’ve always thought

that made we weird.

And then I noticed that everybody does it.

And it’s not because we are in denial or because
we’re forgetful, it’s because the people we

love, who we’ve lost, are still so present
for us.

So, when I say, “Oh, Aaron is…” it’s because
Aaron still is.

He’s present for me in the work that I do,
in the child that we had together, in these

three other children I’m raising, who never
met him, who share none of his DNA, but who

are only in my life because I had Aaron and
because I lost Aaron.

He’s present in my marriage to Matthew, because
Aaron’s life and love and death made me the

person that Matthew wanted to marry.

So I’ve not moved on from Aaron, I’ve moved
forward with him.

These are the experiences that mark us and
make us just as much as the joyful ones, and

just as permanently—long after you get your
last sympathy card or your last hot dish.

Like, we don’t look at the people around us
experiencing life’s joys and wonders and tell

them to “move on,” do we?

We don’t send a card that’s like, “Congratulations
on your beautiful baby,” and then, five years

later, think like, “Another birthday party?

Get over it.”

But grief is kind of one of those things,
like falling in love or having a baby or watching

“The Wire” on HBO, where you don’t get it
until you get it, until you do it.

And once you do it, once it’s your love or
your baby, once it’s your grief and your front

row at the funeral, you get it.

You understand what you’re experiencing is
not a moment in time, it’s not a bone that

will reset, but that you’ve been touched by
something chronic.

Something incurable.

It’s not fatal, but sometimes grief feels
like it could be.

And if we can’t prevent it in one another,
what can we do?

We need each other to remember, to help each
other remember, that grief is this multitasking

emotion.

That you can and will be sad, and happy; you’ll
be grieving, and able to love in the same

year or week, the same breath.

We need to remember that a grieving person
is going to laugh again and smile again.

If they’re lucky, they’ll even find love again.

But yes, absolutely, they’re going to move
forward.

But that doesn’t mean that they’ve moved on.

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26 Comments

26 Comments

  1. Lisa Love Ministries

    July 3, 2021 at 11:45 am

    Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”

    Reply

  2. Selçuk Emre Ünal

    July 3, 2021 at 12:38 pm

    🙁

    Reply

  3. Life Psycle Official

    July 3, 2021 at 1:39 pm

    She kept it so real. I feel that people put unnecessary pressure on the concept of moving on. Everyone have different concepts of moving on.

    Reply

  4. Pro Veritate

    July 3, 2021 at 11:28 pm

    Short and so powerful ! She talks from within. Only a deeprooted experience can open us up to share that emotions with others. There’s so much that we have to learn. And we don’t get the tools in school. We have to aquire the tools as we move on in life. And sometimes we find ourselves alone. Thats the sad part ! We should never be alone in this life.

    We come into this world alone. We leave this world alone. The time that we call life is meant to be shared !

    Reply

  5. Цецилия Самойловна

    July 4, 2021 at 1:47 am

    I hate that question “have you moved on? I feel as though that’s an insensitive question.

    Reply

  6. Joanne Ellis

    July 4, 2021 at 2:07 am

    My soulmate has been dead six days. It was Alzheimer’s. I’ve been grieving five years. What she says is so true.

    Reply

  7. well wisher

    July 4, 2021 at 6:39 am

    Thank you Nora♥️it’s touched.
    Stay Blessed

    Reply

  8. Sacda Abdurhman-Personal Growth

    July 4, 2021 at 7:20 am

    Remember that “It doesn’t matter how long you’ve waited, there’s always time to make a change and strive for more.”

    Reply

  9. stephani debora

    July 4, 2021 at 3:20 pm

    Thank you

    Reply

  10. Ronald Caliva

    July 4, 2021 at 3:27 pm

    People naturally move on unconciously along the way just feel every moment what you’re going through and oneday you’ll be ok and everything will be alright always keep in mind that whatever pain we’re in right now no matter how deep it is dont ever try to take our own life..we will survive and we will forget whatever nightmares we had in the past!

    Reply

  11. Leo_K Covers

    July 4, 2021 at 4:37 pm

    The banner year for me and all of us I believe is 2020 i guess…

    Reply

  12. David Lewis

    July 4, 2021 at 6:37 pm

    grief is love with no place to go…

    Reply

  13. Ligia Sommers

    July 4, 2021 at 6:51 pm

    ????????????????

    Reply

  14. Karishma Sood

    July 4, 2021 at 10:29 pm

    What I needed today!!!

    Reply

  15. Tamara Van Voorst

    July 5, 2021 at 7:24 am

    Thank you for this!

    Reply

  16. Doo-ni Kpaa

    July 5, 2021 at 10:46 am

    Wow! Speechless!

    Reply

  17. Tik toks that are actually funny

    July 5, 2021 at 8:02 pm

    “Don’t be sad it’s over, smile that it happened” – dr Seuss. I think that’s a lovely quote I’ve dealt with greif and thought that’s so true. They may be gone but we had a great time. As long as we had fun. That’s all we can do and feel good that we had a good time. We can’t win against death, we must embrace it and not let go from our loved ones. Remember what a great time we had

    Reply

  18. Tik toks that are actually funny

    July 5, 2021 at 8:04 pm

    When we lose someone we love we must not live without them, but live with the love they left behind.

    Reply

  19. Naidu Sreemaan

    July 6, 2021 at 7:39 am

    HEALTH FOR ALL!!

    Reply

  20. yvette kuziel

    July 6, 2021 at 12:00 pm

    Well said!

    Reply

  21. Ichika Onna

    July 6, 2021 at 2:53 pm

    For me a non-native speaker of English, English has these rich words to explain any thing, for me it can explain some heavy topics to talk about: life. Knowing that English also has many idioms made me burst into tears once, it’s just so beautiful. English helped me a lot in expressing my feeling, and here I am, spending my time to enhance my listening skill. Thank you for these amazing and motivating videos

    Reply

  22. Mykey Farrington-Manchester

    July 7, 2021 at 12:39 am

    GREAT LIGHTWORK????
    PEOPLE =
    = PEOPLE CHAMPION????
    GLOBAL GUARDIAN????
    TH????NK Y????U
    for people support
    youtube
    MYKEYCARD

    LIKE.SHARE,CARE❤
    SPECIAL THANKS
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    ????“BE MOST EXCELLENT TO EACHOTHER““????
    L❤VE + PE????CE = HARM????NY

    Reply

  23. Julia Bee

    July 7, 2021 at 9:47 am

    So beautiful … and true

    Reply

  24. Stoked

    July 7, 2021 at 3:16 pm

    What was this about again? Subjective description of grief? This is really a “feel good” content you would usually find on Buzz Feed, and inspiring quotes for your Instagram feed vs. an actual idea worth sharing.

    Reply

  25. Shawn Kimmich

    July 7, 2021 at 3:29 pm

    the point is, what truly makes you out of the grief is that there certainly is a space for you to move on, not stranded by all the sadness that is chumming on you, it is such a good seminar, for those who is trying to move on, but actually quite cannot.

    Reply

  26. Mahmoud Mahmoud

    July 9, 2021 at 10:32 pm

    great !!

    Reply

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The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more. You’re welcome to link to or embed these videos, forward them to others and share these ideas with people you know.

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The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more. You’re welcome to link to or embed these videos, forward them to others and share these ideas with people you know.

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