Episode 326: Grief as a Dance - Not a Journey - Drew's Momma

Today’s conversation with Drew’s Momma, Melissa, is one that lingers long after the episode ends. She lost her vibrant, adventurous son Drew twenty-five years ago, and in the decades since, she has come to understand her relationship with grief in a way that feels both gentle and profoundly true.

She says grief has not been a journey for her.
Not something linear.
Not something with a clear beginning or an end.

Instead, grief has become a dance.

A dance that ebbs and flows.
A dance with rhythms she didn’t recognize at first.
A dance that asks us to draw close, then step back, then learn to move in ways we never imagined we could.

In the early years, Melissa’s dance was filled with the familiar weight of guilt and blame that so many grieving parents carry. But slowly—through connection with other bereaved moms, through grace, through honesty, and through allowing herself to sit with the pain—she found a new rhythm. Not a rhythm of “moving on,” but a rhythm of moving with. Bringing Drew with her. Letting his love rise up and shape her life in unexpected, meaningful ways.

Twenty-five years later, she says she still feels Drew’s presence as vibrantly as ever. The love never faded. The bond never broke. The dance simply changed.

Her new book, Dear Drew: Creating a Life Bigger Than Grief, captures this transformation beautifully. It honors Drew, honors grief, and honors the possibility of a life expanded—not in spite of our losses, but alongside them.

For anyone in the early days of breath-stealing grief, she gently reminds you: you won’t always feel the way you feel today. You learn the steps slowly. You borrow strength from others who are a bit ahead of you. And over time—one breath, one moment, one tiny step at a time—your body remembers that love still lives here, too.

Grief is not something to conquer.
It is something to move with.
And you are allowed to find your own rhythm.