Healing Grief Through Continuing Bonds

One method that helps with healing grief is what grief therapists like me call “continuing bonds.” Developed by Dennis Klass, Phyllis Silverman, and Steven Nickman, the Continuing Bonds Theory suggests that healing grief doesn’t mean ending your relationship with your loved one who is no longer here in the physical world —it means redefining it.

Rather than “moving on,” you move forward with the person’s memory, influence, and love still present in your life. It holds the belief, “Love never dies,” which is actually the last sentence of my book, I Can See Clearly Now: A Memoir about Love, Grief, and Gratitude (available in paperback and Kindle, and very soon – Audible)!

Love doesn’t disappear, it transforms.

The concept of continuing bonds takes on unique and profound importance in midlife because this season of life is already marked by so much reflection, transition, and identity redefinition.

Here are some benefits of continuing bonds

Helps people integrate these losses rather than suppress them.

Allows grief to become a source of connection and meaning instead of emptiness or guilt.

Gives people permission to keep loving without shame.

Affirms that their capacity for love doesn’t end with death — it evolves into legacy, wisdom, and compassion.

People can carry forward the values, lessons, and inspiration of those they’ve lost as part of their evolving identity.

Offers a gentle, self-compassionate way to process emotions and stay connected to love and meaning, which fosters greater wellbeing.

Facilitates passing on emotional wisdom to your children and grandchildren.

It models that grief is not the end of love — it’s love transformed.

This concept helped me so much after my fiancé and father died. “Moving on” never felt right to me. Instead, carrying them with me – their love, lessons, interest, personality traits, and influence – does.

Now I’m doing the same after my mother’s passing.

One of the ways that I do that is to visit special places my mom and I went together.

Today, I did just that.

My mother used to take short hikes at Stephens State Park by herself. She wasn’t able to go far, but she was able to go from the parking lot to the trail that leads to benches at the river. When she was 79 or 80, she wanted to show me how beautiful it was, and she took me there.

In her earlier years, I took her to so many beautiful spots. This time, she wanted to take me. It was the last hike that we took together, and the only time I’d ever been to this park. After that, she was not able to hike any more. I then took her to beautiful places that she was able to see from the car, or just a few feet from the car.

Today, I hiked here with my husband. I paused at the river, remembering my mother by my side. It hurts so much that she’s not here physically, but I’m grateful to know she’s with me spiritually, and to have this memory etched in my heart.

And with comforting predictability, nature heals. Being among these vibrant colors deep in the woods, listening to the river and animals scurrying in the leaves, touching the bark on trees, and inhaling that unmistakable, woodsy scent of autumn – so incredibly healing. And deep gratitude to be hiking and share this special time with my husband.

Do you have a special activity, tradition you carryon on, location you visit, personality trait that you take on, or other way that you practice continuing bonds?