4 PM Reflection| Grieving 2025: Layers, Legacy & Letting Go

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4 PM Reflection: Grieving 2025—Layers, Legacy & Letting Go

Rip to my father Minister Clarence Pulley Jr and brother SGT Ronnie Michael Pulley USMC “Heaven is the Goal”

This year has been heavy. Six family members gone. Five on one side and one on the other. Some close. Some distant. But all part of the story. And grief doesn’t ask how close you were; it just arrives.

I have also noticed lots of other families have lost loved ones this year. Famous celebrities have passed, too many to list here and prayers go out to you. From friends losing parents, spouses, and kids, this year has just been a rough one.

I think of Mrs. Debra Williams and Mrs. Daphne Jenkins and others who are no longer with us.

I’ve been wrestling with the layers of grief. Not just the loss of life, but the loss of connection, clarity, and even the hope of reconciliation. The pain that they are simply, gone. It stings but points to other things.

And I want to name something that’s often overlooked: It’s a grief to want to ease someone else’s pain and realize that you can’t. That is personal grief they have to go through on their own. It’s a grief to show up and still feel unseen because you can’t bring someone back or take away the pain they feel. It’s a grief to lose someone and then lose the family rhythm that held you all together.

But that is what’s special about the people that leave us, you feel their absence so hard because that’s how much they mean to you. The price of love is grief, and I’d pay it all over again.