Grief is the great equalizer. It spans social and financial status, it crosses all lines of privilege or need. It forces us into a new place that will never be the same as the old one. Grief does not arrive with instructions. It doesn’t follow a timeline, honor milestones, or soften with good intentions. It changes the shape of a life—and then asks the impossible: How do you keep living inside that new shape?
For Lisa Orris, an ordained minister by vocation, that question became painfully real on August 7, 2015, her younger son Michael's birthday, when her oldest son, Billy, then 26, died tragically in an accident. Nothing in her decades of walking alongside others prepared her for the devastation of losing her own child. The loss stripped everything down to what was raw, aching, and unfixable. What was immediately clear was that nothing would ever be “normal” again.
What Lisa discovered in the aftermath was not a path out of grief, but a way through it—one rooted in presence, honesty, and the radical permission to feel pain without trying to solve it, fix it or “recover” from it. That lived-experience would eventually spark Grief Guide, a community-based approach to grief support with a mission to normalize grief and give permission for pain in a culture that is obsessed with pleasure and averse to leaning into that which hurts.
But first, Lisa had to grapple with her own grief and beliefs.
Lisa grew up in Pittsburg, a tough steel town, where she learned to “not let them see you sweat.” Determined and driven, she wore her stoicism as a badge of honor. Until the unthinkable happened and the grief did what grief will do, it broke her wide open, leaving her vulnerable and exposed - the brick wall in a pile on the floor.
The American Psychology Association defines grief partially as: “The anguish experienced after significant loss, usually the death of a beloved person…” Lisa would add that grief is normal, natural, and a necessary human experience. Grieving people are neither broken nor damaged. They do not need “fixing.” They need a safe space to process.
She challenges the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief theory as it has been interpreted. It suggests that there is a fixed amount of time, a beginning and an end to our grief. “If I can just get to the last stage, then my grief will be complete.” It unintentionally leads people to measure and judge themselves about how “well” they are managing their grief. But grief has no finish line. It ebbs and flows, and often involves yearning over bargaining and adjustment rather than acceptance.
Lisa’s mission to normalize grief is deeply intertwined with the notion that her grief, pain, and sorrow - just as any of ours - may somehow serve someone else on their journey. If her scars can be shared to ease the burdens others carry, then the loss of her son was about teaching her that suffering reveals who we really are. It burns the house to the ground and strips us bare. And if we can sift through the ashes and sit in it long enough, we can see ourselves clearly, maybe for the first time, and become more of who we are meant to be.
As Lisa walked with her grief she began to realize that her calling was to also walk with others through their grief. This led her to create Silver Lake Retreat in 2021. It began as a peaceful space of solace carved out of a small section of the basement of their home situated on a small lake in Cary. And eventually evolved to include the purchase of the house next door to be able to open the doors to more people looking for respite.
When we visited on a cold, snowy day, the serenity of the space overlooking the lake felt warm and comforting despite the temperature. There is something healing about water…even frozen. Maybe it is the way it flows freely or can be affected by the storms but find its way back to calm. Perhaps it teaches us to change with the seasons and that each can be beautiful.
Lining the stairway to this lower level of their home are photos of Billy. Smiling, happy, alive. So much life ahead, yet not meant to be. It is a reminder of the life lost and that nothing can ever be the same. Recently, as Sharmila snapped photos of Lisa sitting beside the pictures, we listened as she talked about Billy–his unrelenting passion for life, his deep faith, his fearlessness, his pride in family and desire to keep everyone close. I wondered, to myself, if somewhere in his soul he knew he had only 26 years here, so he was going to live them out loud.
Our tears flowed as Lisa said, “It has been 10 years and it still stops me in my tracks sometimes when I say, ‘Billy’s dead’.” Both Sharmila and I each have a 26 year old son. Imagining him not coming home is unbearable. Yet, there we sat with a mom who suffered just that. If I close my eyes, I can hear the raw, primal cry of a woman discovering her son is dead. Gone. Never coming home. It physically hurts my heart to contemplate that. What also struck me was that Lisa was not shaken by our tears. She has a calm, yet honest and vulnerable way about her that gives the rest of us the “permission” so be exactly where we are on our journey.
As Lisa struggled to learn how to exist every day without her son, she gained a new perspective considering the power of “and.” The idea that we can be both: heartbroken and hopeful, crying and laughing, desperate and resilient, lost and found. But while she was ready to share her wisdom with the world, the story didn’t end there.
On December 17th, 2022, just as the vision for Silver Lake Retreat was beginning to take shape, tragedy struck again. Lisa’s daughter-in-law—the wife of her younger son, Michael—died unexpectedly.
The loss was devastating…again. It was also unbearably layered: she was the wife of the son whose birthday now carried the weight of Billy’s death. Once again, grief collapsed time and meaning, leaving nothing untouched.
Everything at home stopped while Lisa spent six months in Bismarck, North Dakota, helping her son and twin four-year-old grandsons survive the unthinkable. When she eventually returned home, what remained was grief. But what was found was a deeper clarity.
After much time contemplating by the lake, in the fall of 2023 she discovered, more deeply, her calling. It was to guide people in their grief. What she has created is not therapy, not a checklist, and not a path toward “getting over” loss. Instead, Grief Guide offers something far more rare—permission to grieve as a human being. Today, Grief Guide is “the beautiful intersection of retreats, support groups, and awareness training.” Lisa sits beside people on their journey, without judgement, timelines, or rules. Just acceptance.
Lisa shares her story in her book, Never Apologize for Your Tears, a raw and powerful look into not just Lisa’s grief, but grief in general. It challenges our culture’s interpretation of the teaching of Christianity, but isn’t about religion. It is about a path toward grace and hope and forgiveness. Throughout, Lisa encourages us to sit in the pain, to “lament,” to question, and to not apologize for any of it. She offers Grief Practices–exercises to help us move through the pain not just pass over it or shove it down.
While we were with Lisa at her home, as if on cue, her husband of 40 years, Bill, comes flying in the door. Full of excitement, warm, and friendly. A chaplain himself, he, too, knows how to show up for people in times of need. On this particular day, he was breezing in to pick up a signed copy of Lisa’s book to give as a gift to another grieving mom who recently lost her child. When we asked him to pause to take a photo with his wife, he eagerly agreed. As they snuggled into the couch, side by side, their genuine affection and admiration for one another was palpable. When others may have broken, this couple has managed to weather the most horrific storm together. Not without bumps in the road, of course. But with grace, compassion, and commitment, they have learned to both rely on each other and give the other space when called for.
Sometimes, when you feel like the world is closing in around you and as if you’re being swallowed up whole, a person shows up to remind you that you are not alone, that your pain matters, as well as what you do with that pain. For so many, including me, that person has been Lisa. She reminds us that “Our tears aren’t just sadness, they are love torn apart,” and grief is normal and even needed.
The universe has a way of working things out. It often presents a lifeline, a light in the darkness, a path of hope. And maybe grief is the reason we learn to live an abundant life; one that Lisa says is full of joy, sorrow, celebration, despair, and hope.
Lisa Orris is proof that out of the depths of grief, rises grace, for oneself and others, and clarity about what matters and what doesn’t. Not because you pray harder or are a “better Christian.” Not because you believe that our suffering is “so that” we learn, earn, or give something better. But because grace and clarity come from sitting in the pain. From being silent and opening our hearts and minds to the possibility that if we allow ourselves to completely fall apart, we will be okay.
Grieving people are neither broken nor damaged. They do not need “fixing.” They need a safe space to process.