Blog post
Grief Will Reshape You. And Sometimes, It Shows You What to Build Next.
Authored by: Kelly Edmondson
My grief and I were alone in my car, on a rainy summer afternoon, when I knew I needed to build Timely Presence.
I had been back to work for months. I was operating. Responding to emails. Leading meetings. By all accounts, I was doing all thing things to let the outside world know that I was okay.
But… I wasn’t okay.
My son Darius died January 3, 2023. He was just 28. Funny. Smart. FULL of hopes and dreams and plans that he would never get to see through. And in those first few months after losing him, I faced a stark reality: everybody else’s world had kept spinning while mine stood still.
I’ve spent my career as a trauma ICU nurse and healthcare executive. I had spent hours in systems with multiple rituals to support death and the dying. And none for the surviviors. Professionally, I knew they were missing something. Once I experienced it personally, it became crystal clear.
I knew that until someone did something about it, grieving families would keep falling through the cracks. And losing Darius taught me what that cost.
When my son died, most people didn’t know how to stay. And I knew someone needed to build something that would.
What grief does to ambition
If grief has a reputation, it’s that it kills productivity. There’s a story we tell about loss and getting back to work. It sounds like this: you grieve, and then you pick up the pieces of your old life and glue them back together.
That’s not what happens. Not really. At least, not for me. And believe me when I tell you that for a long time, buying into that story made everything a whole lot harder than it needed to be.
Grief doesn’t put your ambition on hold. It redirects it. When Darius died, I didn’t become less ambitious. I became ambitious about different things. The stuff that used to feel urgent no longer mattered. The stuff that actually mattered became all that I could see.
I did not start Timely Presence in spite of losing my son. I started it because of him. Not only as a tribute, and not simply as a way to work through grief, but because after he died, I saw the gap with a clarity I had never known before. And I knew I had to do something to fill it.
Grief changed what I was building towards. It did not change my ability to build.
What I learned about building while grieving
Ambition and grief are tricky partners. They don’t always agree on where you should be spending your time.
Some days I felt like a founder making important decisions. Other days I was a grieving mother who couldn’t get off the couch. Most days I was both. Often within the same hour.
What I learned from those months is this: you don’t have to have “figured your grief out” to start building. You just have to stop waiting for a version of yourself that feels ready to start. Because she’s not coming. The grief doesn’t stop.
Three things helped me build through it.
First, I stopped pretending like the grief wasn’t happening. In big ways and small, I started letting it inform my work. How I talked about Timely Presence. How I talked to families. How I talked to my team. I did not shy away from naming Darius. He’s not a footnote in my story as a founder. He is the reason there is a story to tell.
Second, I let my credentials and my grief speak to each other. I am a trauma ICU nurse. I am a healthcare executive. And losing Darius taught me things that neither of those roles could have ever prepared me for. So I became a certified grief counselor too. All those pieces together created something new. Something more. My clinical training told me what good support looks like. My lived experience told me why it matters. And my grief counselor training gave me the language to explain it to the world.
Third, I built something small enough to start without being overwhelming. Yet big enough to feel connected to my larger vision. Some days, ambition wasn’t enough to combat the darker days. But my purpose was. Letting that guide me on the days where productivity felt impossible kept me going.
Darius will never finish his plans. That’s a hurt the English language doesn’t have words for.
But, what I can do is finish mine.I can finish for us. And build something that carries love forward.
Grief will reshape you. It doesn’t have to stop you from building.In fact, it might just show you exactly what you were meant to do next.
Author Bio: Kelly Edmondson, MSN, MBA, RN, GC-C, is the founder of Timely Presence, a trauma ICU nurse, healthcare executive, and certified grief counselor. Named one of Modern Healthcare’s 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives in 2026, she founded Timely Presence after the death of her son, Darius, in 2023, to support families.
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For any inquiries, please contact:
Kelly Edmodson
Email: kelly@thetimelypresence.com
Website: thetimelypresence.com
