The Tree That Grew With Me: Reflections on Grief, Growth, and Fig Trees

One year ago, I lost my grandpa.

The kind of loss that doesn’t just sting in the moment, it echoes. In quiet mornings, in old routines, in the way the sunlight hits the kitchen window. He was the steady in our family. The gentle laugh. The “I love you, dollbaby” on the other end of the phone. And when he left, it felt like something in me shifted.

Not long before he passed, I brought a candle to his hospital room. It was one I had made just a few weeks earlier, Bellechase, named after the street he and my grandma lived on. Its scent was fig, inspired by the little fig tree he planted in their backyard when I was a toddler. Over the years, he’d take pictures of me beside it as we both grew, me beaming, and the tree slowly growing taller and taller, season by season.

When I handed him the candle, he lit up. Truly lit up. He held it proudly, smiling ear to ear. Every time a nurse came into the room, he’d make them smell it. “My granddaughter made this,” he’d say. It’s one of my favorite memories, watching him beam with pride over something I created. I'm so grateful he got to see it, to know it was for him.

Now, one year later, I still light Bellechase when I want to feel close to him.
It smells like their yard in late summer. Like sun-warmed fruit and quiet comfort.
It brings me back and grounds me forward.

Grief doesn’t disappear. It just changes shape. It shows up in softer ways like a memory, a scent, a sliver of light. And with it comes the reminder of how deeply we can love.

If you’ve lost someone you love, I hope you give yourself space today. To cry, to laugh, to light something that brings them closer. I’m with you in it.