I’ve been a fan of Grey’s Anatomy from the very start and haven’t missed an episode. I’m still watching 17 seasons later. And while the show has had moments that have remained with me over the years, I never thought I’d actually use a line from the show for this column. Until the episode a few weeks ago, which featured the above quote.
If you watch the show, you know that I’m talking about one of the famous beach scenes from the current season. In what I consider a brilliant touch, the writers used main character Meredith Grey’s battle to survive Covid to create a magical beach where she meets previously deceased characters in her dreams. The beach scenes paint a beautiful image of the after life, reassuring us that our loved ones are always with us.
The concept expressed in the above quote is nothing new. Maybe it touched me so deeply because I’m pretty invested in all the Grey’s characters, or maybe it’s because my grief over losing Ruby, even though it’s been almost 18 months, still feels very fresh and raw.
In the show, Lexie goes on to say “As long as you’re alive, you get to feel it, and you get to do something about it.”
And perhaps that is one of grief’s most enduring lessons: the love never dies, it only changes form. And while we’re alive on this plane, until our time comes to join our departed loved ones, we can choose to love, even knowing that love always comes with the risk of loss.
With bad comes good, that gives each of us the opportunity to choose between the two, and with love comes sadness, if we didn’t know what love is, or how to give and receive it then we would never be able to accept any sadness that comes along and makes us ponder over what happened and why it happened and why we’re experiencing sadness when we just had joy. We live and learn then we move on and hopefully we’ll always be able to take the good with the bad.
Eleanor that was so eloquently stated…thank you for sharing your beautiful thoughts. Every time I lose a pet it is harder to let go and even harder to come to grips with the loss because of the love they give us and we give them. Now that my cat Sophie has cancer, I know she is at the beginning of the long road home and it breaks my heart. It about a year and a half since I lost by corgi, Fudge, and my beautiful Bernese Mt Dog, Halee…I still grieve for them. God let us borrow our pets on this earth for such a short time…pets have a way of finding the people that need them the most.
So true. Thank you for the reminder…
That is such a beautiful quote, and so true! I’ve never watched Grey’s Anatomy but shows that touch you that deeply are special indeed.
Thanks for the great post Ingrid!! I didn’t watch Grey’s when it first came out but I purchased the 16 episodes from Amazon Prime and am currently watching it for the second time. I absolutely love that show and all the characters so I am a huge fan too!!!
I’ve never watched that show (not much of a TV person), but I followed the link to the beach scenes and watched all of them. So wonderful and beautiful! I cried through all of them, without knowing any of the characters. So relatable and well acted. I’m always looking for validation that helps me believe I will see my late husband again. And other loved ones and my sweet fur babies too. Why not, I want it all. Thank you for posting so much hope. <3
That quote is so true. I think I will cross stitch that one. The grief is deeper and longer for each fur baby I’ve had and lost. But I can not live without the love one gives and gets back in return. I look forward to being with my fur babies and mom on the other side.
Great quote. I never got into Grey’s Anatomy, But the episode you mentioned with Meredith dreaming of past characters sounds like it would have been a really good one.