Salt Trails

There are two things I want to say today: it’s okay to cry, and it’s important to remember.

Many of us have absorbed messages—through family, peers, culture, or social media—that tears are a sign of weakness. We are taught to contain our sorrow, hide heartbreak, and move on as quickly as possible. Even in communities of faith, grief can be hurried along by easy answers or pressure to appear “strong.” But what if tears are not a failure of faith? What if they are one of the ways love speaks when words are not enough?

The Gospel of John portrays Jesus weeping at the death of Lazarus and in the presence of a grieving community. Whatever we understand about the story’s history and symbolism, this image matters: a beloved spiritual teacher does not stand above sorrow. Jesus enters it. He weeps in compassion, empathy, and grief—even as the story holds out hope beyond death.

Luke’s Gospel also depicts Jesus weeping over Jerusalem—not with quiet tears alone, but with bitter sobbing. Scripture does not present grief as shameful or faithless. Tears are a deeply human response to sorrow, injustice, loss, and love.

Tears are a legitimate and healthy response to sorrow and grief. Psychologically tears are cathartic – helping us release inner tension, process of grief and find relief. Scientifically, tears calm our nervous system by releasing feel-good chemicals like endorphins and oxytocin, and expelling stress hormones like cortisol.

When we suppress tears, our body doesn't simply turn off the emotion; it traps the physical energy of that distress inside. Consider the image of a pressure cooker! Crying acts as a natural biological release valve. Forcefully closing that valve can trigger and suppressing tears forces your body to remain in a heightened state of stress, straining your nervous system, cardiovascular health, and muscles.

The writer and activist adrienne maree brown offers a beautiful reminder: “Remember you are water. Of course you leave salt trails. Of course you are crying. Flow.” She invites us to consider that grief stretches the heart—that love may grow as large as grief demands, and that choosing to feel is itself an act of resistance in a distracted world.

COVID didn’t do us any favors in the “healthy grieving” department. We couldn’t gather for funerals or memorial services, families weren’t supposed to gather either… and now more and more people are choosing to do nothing at all when their loved ones pass away. I understand that funerals can be costly, but I firmly believe that it is important and healthy to find communal ways to grieve and remember.

It’s important to remember and it’s important to take the time to feel and weep.

My dad died in May. Because he knew relatively few people where we live, we chose a less traditional celebration of his life. A couple of weeks after his death, we took trays of cookies—one of his favorite things—and the paintings not claimed by family to St. Monica’s Senior Living Center, where he had spent the last five years of his life. We set up in the lobby, shared the cookies, and gave paintings to people who had known and cared for him. We listened to their stories. The gathering was as meaningful for them as it was for us.

Later, my brother and I gathered with our families in Breckenridge to scatter Dad’s ashes. We met in the forest near a ski slope we had once skied together. We remembered his character, his importance to us, and what we had learned from him. We wept—and the weeping was good and necessary.

The next night, we watched old home movies and passed around photographs from different seasons of Dad’s life. There were fewer tears and more laughter. The memories drew us closer and made his presence tangible among us.

We sometimes avoid speaking about someone who has died because we fear making others sad. Yet it can be profoundly comforting to know that a loved one is remembered. The grief that surfaces is often threaded with gratitude: for love shared, for life shared, and for all that the relationship gave us.

A few months after Dad died, a staff member at St. Monica’s texted me. They were making tie-dyed shirts, and the activity reminded them of how much my dad had loved doing that. They simply wanted me to know he was remembered. I was deeply grateful.

Of course, memories are not always simple. Relationships are complicated, and grief can be, too. We may mourn not only what we had, but also what we needed and never received. A progressive faith does not require us to romanticize the dead, deny harm, or force forgiveness. We can honor what was beautiful while telling the truth about what was painful. We can hold gratitude, anger, relief, regret, and love together.

I cannot say definitively what happens after death; none of us knows with certainty. But I trust that love is not wasted. When we speak the names of those who have died, tell their stories, and practice what they taught us at their best, we carry something of them forward.

So let the tears come when they come. Make room for laughter when it returns. Gather in ways that fit your people, your resources, your culture, and your faith. Remember honestly and tenderly.

Love & Light!

Kaye