Quote · On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Lucy Kalanithi: What Loss Can Teach Us About Living (The Perspective Shift That Changes Everything)
Where this was said
Letting Go vs. Giving Up
At 1:00:10 · chapter starts 57:19
Jay asks how Lucy navigated the question of loving again — especially given Paul's early declaration that he wanted her to remarry. Her answer is almost deliberately undramatic: it wasn't a conscious decision, just intuition. Six months after Paul died, she went swimming, took off her ring, and didn't put it back on. She still wears his wedding ring on the other hand. She describes the Hot Young Widows Club — a Facebook community founded by Nora McInerney — as an important space for working through questions of loyalty, disloyalty, and readiness. Her conclusion: love is infinite, not finite. Paul is her family forever, just as a new child doesn't replace a lost one. The harder work was healing enough to become emotionally available again, not the question of whether love was possible.
Lucy didn't consciously decide to open her heart again — it was pure intuition. Six months after Paul died, she went swimming, took off her ring, and just didn't put it back on. She still wears his wedding ring on her other hand. Love isn't a finite resource: Paul is her family forever, and there is enough love to go around.
