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For You
- Olivia Harrell
- Apr 30, 2025
- 2 min read
There’s an old adage that says; it’s not what happens to you, but what happens for you.
And honestly? That phrase used to make me want to scream.
Because when you’re holding the ashes of a life that will never be again…when someone you love dies without reason. Without warning. How do you wrap that into something for me?
Grief doesn’t like tidy answers. It wants the raw truth.
And the truth is, some of what happened broke me open in ways I never wanted.
Grief took a piece of me I can never get back.
And I don’t want it back—not really.
I want him back.
I want my brother,Griffin.
This void feels like it happened to me, not for me.
Moving on in grief is not a loop—it’s a ladder.
With every rung, I change. I leave parts of myself behind, sometimes because I have to, sometimes because I’ve outgrown those parts in the most painful ways imaginable.
But…
In the climbing of that ladder, I have also made space for something new.
This is where the contradiction lives: I hate what I’ve lost but I’m grateful for what I’ve found.
In the untidy space of raw grief, I found myself in rooms with people who understand the language of loss.
I found LITT, a lifeline I didn’t know I needed.
I found a slower pace, a deeper breath, a different way of living.
I don’t rush through life the way I used to. Or at least I try not to.
My awareness of the life around me is heightened
I notice things now—the light through the trees, the way my son’s voice changes when he’s excited, the way sourdough feels under my hands when it’s ready to rise.
I soak it in because I know so well what it’s like to lose the chance to see any of it again.
So maybe some of it was for me.
The growth.
The connection.
The clarity.
But the loss itself?
No. Absolutely not.
That didn’t need to happen for me. I refuse to romanticize devastation.
Some things just happen. And they hurt like hell.
From the hurt, we get to choose what we carry forward.
We get to decide how we climb that ladder out.
And in the rising, I carry him.
Olivia Harrell lives in Baldwin, Maryland, with her husband, two young children, and a Bulldog named Lola. She lost her brother, Griffin, to an accidental overdose from Fentanyl on September 25, 2023. Her monthly blog examines the twists and turns of grief and healing. Olivia loves to spend time with her family, make sourdough from scratch, and exercise. She is also incredibly thankful for the community of LITT and invites others with a similar loss to participate in LITT’s Sibling Support Group. For more information click here.
This post really resonated with me because it captures that quiet, often unspoken struggle of trying to find meaning in difficult moments. The idea that something could be happening “for you” rather than “to you” isn’t always easy to accept, especially when emotions are still raw, but it offers a gentle sense of hope. It reminds me how important reflection and self-compassion are in the healing process. Even in academic fields, like when students explore Nursing Dissertation Topics, understanding human emotions and personal experiences plays such a vital role in developing empathy and care. That connection between real life and learning is powerful. I also think having the right support system matters a lot, and services like New Assignment Help…
Olivia, this hit me somewhere I didn't expect. "I hate what I've lost but I'm grateful for what I've found" — that contradiction is so real, and I think so many of us have been taught to tidy grief into a lesson when sometimes it just needs to exist as a wound. The ladder image resonates deeply; growth in loss doesn't mean you're okay with the loss, it just means you're still climbing. It reminds me of how New Assignment Help UK often uses an assignment example for students to show that struggling through something hard doesn't mean you failed — it means you're doing the actual work. Carrying someone forward in how you live, how you slow down, how…
This piece hit differently, Olivia — "I hate what I've lost but I'm grateful for what I've found" might be the most honest sentence I've ever read about grief. That contradiction doesn't need to be resolved; it just needs to be held. Your image of grief as a ladder rather than a loop is something I'll carry with me. It reminds me of how, during one of the hardest seasons of my life, a mentor became my Assignment Helper — not solving my pain, but helping me figure out what I was actually carrying and what I could set down. Finding LITT sounds like that kind of gift: not an answer, but a hand on the rung beside you. Thank…
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Reading the “For You” post made me pause in a way I didn’t expect, because it echoes so much of the emotional labor we quietly carry while trying to show up for others. As a current PhD student juggling a part-time role at Affordable Assignments, where I assist students with their academic work, especially through Psychology Assignment Writing Service support, I often think about how much these small acts of guidance matter. In my own college days, I struggled intensely with academic pressures and the feeling of having to hold everything together alone, so I’ve grown almost overly conscious about both my studies and the well-being of those around me. This piece reminded me that offering help, whether in research, writing,…