Grief doesn’t arrive with instructions.
It doesn’t tell you how long it will last, or what will help, or when you’ll finally feel like yourself again. It simply moves in, quietly and heavily, and waits. And in the meantime, you learn to find relief in the smallest of places. A warm meal. A familiar song. A long walk with nowhere particular to be.
For grieving mothers, grieving families, and anyone carrying invisible weight, these small moments aren’t trivial. They’re lifelines. They’re how we make it through one more day.
This past Saturday, my lifeline was a hiking trail.
The weather was the kind that feels like a gift. Warm sun, a soft breeze, the world unhurried and easy. I put in my earbuds, let the music carry me, and started walking. Above me, the sky stretched wide and blue. Around me, the trees stood tall and still. And somewhere along that trail, something shifted.
I felt lighter.
For one hour, I wasn’t a woman carrying grief. I was just a person breathing, moving, existing inside something beautiful. Moments like that, for me, are a form of prayer. A quiet, wordless thank-you to God for the world He made. Whatever your spiritual beliefs, you may know that feeling. The sense that nature is holding you in something larger than yourself.
It was in that spirit that I whispered aloud, “Father God, thank You for the years You allowed Cynthia and me to share together.”
Her name settled into the trees. And I kept walking.
That’s when I noticed her.
A woman crouched near the trail, balancing her phone on the ground with the timer set. I slowed down, genuinely puzzled, and asked what she was doing.
She looked up with a warm smile. “I’m trying to take a picture of myself hugging this tree.”
I laughed and offered to help. A few clicks later, she had her photo, and she was beaming. But I was curious.
“Why is hugging the tree important to you?” I asked.
She looked at me as though the answers were the simplest thing in the world.
“When you hug a tree,” she said, “it gives you peace of mind. It gives you love. It brings inner happiness.”
I stood there for a moment, letting her words land.
Then I handed her my phone.
I don’t know exactly how to describe what happened when I wrapped my arms around that tree. I’m not sure the right words even exist.
Maybe it was the power of belief. Maybe it was nature doing what science says it can, grounding us, calming our nervous systems, returning us to something real and elemental. Maybe it was simply that I had been holding so much for so long, and something about that rough bark beneath my hands gave me permission to let go.
Whatever it was, it worked.
I felt the grief I had been quietly carrying begin to loosen its grip. I felt connected. I felt, strangely, held. As though I had leaned into something ancient and solid and strong enough to bear the weight I had brought with me on that trail.
It felt like peace. It felt like comfort. It felt like healing.
So here is what I want to leave with you, dear reader.
If you are in a season of grief, or loneliness, or simply the quiet exhaustion of carrying too much, go outside. Take a walk if you can. And if you find yourself standing near a tree, don’t rush past it.
Pause. Put your arms around it. Close your eyes.
You might feel silly for a moment. And then you might feel something you haven’t felt in a while.
Research actually supports what that woman already knew intuitively. A practice called “forest bathing,” known in Japanese as “Shinrin-yoku”, has been shown to lower cortisol levels, reduce anxiety, and restore emotional balance. Trees, it turns out, are remarkably good listeners.
But you don’t need a study to tell you that. Sometimes, you just need to try it yourself.
Thank you for taking the time to read my story. These are the moments I write about, not because they are dramatic, but because they are true. And sometimes the truest things are the ones that heal us.
Have you ever hugged a tree? Have you heard of this before? I would love to know. Leave a comment below.