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When my 70-year-old Korean hairstylist, Karen, mentioned that her husband had passed away a few years ago, I did what any well-mannered person would do.

I gasped, put my hand on my heart, and said, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

She waved me off, smiling like I’d just said something ridiculous. “Don’t be sorry,” she said. “He went five years ago, while we were doing the freaky.”

Let me tell you, there are some things you can’t unhear.

I sat there, frozen in the salon chair, trying to process what she’d just told me. Was this…normal? Did 70-year-old halmonis say things like this out loud? Was I supposed to laugh? She grinned at my reaction. “His tool was working well until the very end,” she added with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

And just when I thought the conversation couldn’t get any more shocking, she leaned in and said, “And now I have three different tools at home if I need them. And if you need any, I know a lady who sells them.” Then, when she handed me a business card for a pleasure consultant—I think my soul left my body for a second.

The Coexistence of Grief and Joy

As I walked out of that salon, I kept thinking about Karen’s story. Her husband had passed away five years ago, and yet she spoke of him with a mix of joy, humor, and fondness. She wasn’t weighed down by grief.

In fact, she carried it lightly, like a memory that made her smile more than it made her cry.

And that reminded me of a line from the Disney+ show “WandaVision”:

“What is grief, if not love persevering?”

That quote has stuck with me ever since I heard it. It’s a reminder that grief isn’t just sadness. It’s love, lingering long after someone is gone.

And if love can linger, so can joy.

Grief Through a Cultural Lens

While reflecting on Karen’s story, I thought about what I knew regarding how different cultures handle grief. In many Western traditions, grief is treated as something quiet and private, a weight we must carry alone. But in other parts of the world, mourning looks entirely different.

For example, in Mexico, the Día de los Muertos festival transforms mourning into a vibrant celebration of life. Families honor their deceased loved ones by building colorful altars filled with photos, marigolds, and their favorite foods. The dead are visited by their alebrijes, their guide or spirit animal. The atmosphere isn’t sad. It’s lively and full of laughter, as if the boundary between the living and the dead has temporarily dissolved.

Similarly, in Ireland, traditional wakes bring people together for storytelling, music, and sometimes raucous laughter. The stories told may be funny, even absurd, because they reflect the fullness of the person’s life.

Humor isn’t inappropriate; it’s healing.

Even Japan’s quiet Buddhist funerals, although solemn, focus on gratitude and the peaceful transition of the spirit. The emphasis is not just on what is lost but on what remains—the love, the memories, and the connection.

These traditions show us that grief doesn’t have to look sad and somber. It can be colorful, loud, and joyful, and bring people together. It can remind us to celebrate love, even in the face of loss.

A Lesson from Nature

We talk about death like it’s a disaster, but nature doesn’t see it that way. When a tree falls, the forest doesn’t panic. It just turns the trunk into soil, food, and shelter for something else. Animals don’t obsess over dying the way we do; no deer lies awake worrying about its legacy, and flowers don’t argue about staying in bloom.

Seasons change without complaint.

Meanwhile, humans treat death like a personal insult. We hide it behind medical language, anti-aging products, and a whole lot of fear instead of accepting it as part of nature. But in the natural world, death is just cyclical. It’s a way for energy to move, a way for life to shift.

Maybe that’s the joke of being human. All of nature understands that death is continuation, and we’re the only ones trying to negotiate our way out of it.

The Rules of Grief

Western society tends to put grief in a box. It expects the grieving to be solemn and composed, to cry quietly, and to “move on” within an unspoken but limited timeframe.

But grief is messy and unpredictable and doesn’t work that way.

One alternative I’ve come to appreciate is finding joy in memories. Laughing at a funny story about someone you’ve lost—like Karen’s husband kicking the bucket during naughty time—doesn’t diminish their importance. In fact, it’s often the opposite. It keeps them alive in the most human way possible.

Another way that I’ve seen people grieve is by creating rituals of celebration. I’ve heard of families who host annual dinners in honor of a loved one, complete with their favorite foods, music, or even funny traditions. These moments bring people together in a way that feels alive, not just like a reflection of what’s gone.

And sometimes, grieving means staying connected. This could include writing letters to someone you’ve lost, visiting a loved one’s grave or where you scattered their ashes, keeping something of theirs close, or even just pausing to say, “I still love you, and I still carry you with me.”

These things might not fit society’s idea of “moving on,” but they keep the love alive.

I once read about a man who knew his time was limited due to terminal cancer, so he chose to celebrate his life with loved ones rather than have a funeral or gathering where he wouldn’t be present. He rented a beautiful space, invited close friends and family, and created a night filled with food, drinks, and poetry.

To show his gratitude, he prepared a heartfelt presentation filled with photos and personal anecdotes about everyone in attendance. Rather than leaving his loved ones to mourn after he was gone, he chose to connect with them while he was still here. This turned his goodbye into a joyful tribute to life, love, and the relationships that shaped him, so he could leave behind a powerful reminder to cherish every moment with your loved ones, even when they are no longer with you.

There is, however, another kind of loss that doesn’t arrive gently. When you lose someone without warning (the type of death you don’t see coming, like an accident, an illness that accelerates, a suicide, or violence), you don’t have time to prepare your heart or soften the landing when you get that phone call that changes your entire life. These losses crash into you, leaving behind unanswered questions, unfinished conversations, and a silence that feels louder than grief itself.

In those moments, humor and celebration may not come easily, and that’s valid. The kind of peace and acceptance I saw in Karen didn’t happen overnight; it was shaped by time, memory, and healing. When we face an abrupt loss, grief often begins as shock, anger, or disbelief before it can ever turn into reflection. There is no shortcut through that grieving process, and definitely no expectation that joy must coexist with mourning right away.

Sometimes, the first step is simply allowing your pain to occupy space.

Tools for Living

That day, I walked out of the salon with freshly cut hair and a new perspective on love and loss. Grief, I’ve learned, doesn’t have to be about letting go. It can be about carrying what matters in a way that feels right for you.

For me, this has been especially true with my heart dog, Corky, who taught me that love is messy, imperfect, and enduring, and sometimes shows up in unexpected ways. He wasn’t just a pet. He was my everything. It’s been years since I lost him without warning, and I still think about him every single day.

His sudden loss shook me, and it took me a while to work through it. But today, I carry him with me in the little moments, in memories that make me smile, and in the way I approach love and connection with others.

Karen reminded me that love, like grief, doesn’t have an expiration date. It’s not something we outgrow or set aside; it’s part of what makes us human. And when I think about Corky, I realize he taught me to carry both grief and love together, letting each enrich my life in its own way.

As far as humor, there’s nothing wrong with that either, and as for Karen’s “tools,” let’s just say I haven’t taken her up on her offer…yet. But the real tools I’ve learned to use are humor and love. Because when it comes down to it, what is grief if not love persevering, a reminder of how deeply we’ve loved and perhaps been loved? And what is humor if not life reminding us to keep going?

Together, they help us carry what we’ve lost and embrace what’s still waiting—one messy, beautiful moment at a time. Because ultimately, love and humor aren’t just ways to survive grief. They are proof that even in the presence of loss, life remains worth living.

~

Another beautiful way to honor and understand death: