Turning Grief Into Purpose
Q on loss, fatherhood, and learning to ask for help
I started the Awakened Dreamers documentary series to give ordinary people a place to share the setbacks they have faced and how they are finding purpose beyond them. Through Twin n Nem, I want these stories to remind you that what you have been through does not have to define who you become.
When Q lost his grandmother shortly before Thanksgiving in 2020, he still had to be a husband and a father. His grief arrived inside a life that already needed him. He was hurting, trying to understand what her absence meant, while the people he loved continued to need his attention and care. There was no clean space between being the man who had lost someone and being the man his family depended on.
If you have ever carried a loss through an ordinary day, that pressure may feel familiar. You can answer a question, finish a task, or be in the room with people you love while part of you is somewhere else. You may even wonder how everyone can keep going when something so important has changed. Q describes that bewilderment directly. He wanted to know why the world around him was not feeling what he felt.
In his conversation with Twin n Nem, Q introduces himself as an aspiring artist from Chicago, drawn to photography and music. Then he begins talking about the loss that changed how he understood himself. His account of turning grief into purpose takes us into the strain within his relationships, the habits he questioned, and the help he became willing to accept. As he tells it, becoming more dependable required him to face how much he was struggling.
When pain follows you home
Q had once kept his concern close to home. His family and his immediate circle mattered most; what happened beyond them could feel distant. After his grandmother died, he found himself caring more about strangers. His own hurt made other people's suffering harder to overlook. Yet becoming more compassionate did not mean he immediately knew what to do with the grief inside him. Empathy and anger existed in the same man.
He could recognize someone else's pain and still feel frustrated that life expected so much from him. He describes needing to show up for his wife and children while feeling that he could not show what he was carrying. That pressure sits beneath his observation that “the world don't stop when you get hurt.” The world continuing was a reality he had to live with every day.
Eventually, he saw that his grief was reaching his family through his reactions. He was lashing out. He was taking his hurt out on his wife. He names that plainly, without asking the listener to excuse it. The people closest to him were experiencing the consequences of something they had not caused.
There is a difficult kind of honesty in recognizing yourself in that pattern. Perhaps you have heard your own tone become sharper than you intended, then realized the person in front of you was receiving frustration that began elsewhere. You can care deeply about someone and still need to change how you treat them. For him, noticing the harm became a responsibility to respond differently.
Facing what relief could not resolve
Q also began looking at how he was trying to get through the day. He says marijuana had shifted from recreational use to something he used every day to take his mind off his grandmother. He wanted relief from thoughts he did not know how to settle. But when the effects wore off, he was still thinking about her. The loss was waiting for him, and he describes overthinking that had begun reaching into other parts of his life.
What troubled him was how unfamiliar he felt to himself. The routine was becoming normal, even though it did not fit the life he wanted. He could keep finding reasons for it, or he could admit that it was not helping him in the way he needed. Listening to him, the turning point seems to lie in that recognition: he was starting to question a habit he had been relying on.
His experience asks a question that reaches beyond one coping habit. Has the thing you turn to for a break begun deciding how you spend your days? There can be real discomfort in answering honestly, especially when you are already hurting. Q's account makes room for that discomfort. He had to notice what was happening before he could begin making a different choice.
Letting someone help him carry it
For Q, asking for help meant putting pride aside. He speaks about the reluctance he has seen among some Black men to go to therapy, then describes the value of having a professional to talk to. He wanted someone outside his friendships and marriage, someone who could hear what he was saying without automatically taking his side. He was looking for perspective as well as a place to speak.
That distinction reveals something about his intention. Agreement alone would not necessarily help him understand why he was overthinking or how his grief was affecting his family. He wanted someone who could help him put language to what was happening and consider how to respond. Seeking that kind of conversation required him to let another person see beyond the role of husband, father, or man who was supposed to have things handled.
“I need help. I need somebody to talk to.”
Q
If you are used to being the person everyone calls, those words may be hard to say. Being dependable can become so closely tied to your identity that admitting a need feels unfamiliar. Q connects that admission to caring for his family. His wife and children mattered to him, and the way he was managing his hurt was affecting them. Making room for his own needs became part of learning how to be present for theirs.
Faith remained central to how he understood this work. He speaks about God as someone higher to look to and answer to, a source of accountability that could make him think twice about his decisions. Professional support and faith both have a place in his account. Together, they show the seriousness with which he was approaching his choices and the kind of man he wanted those choices to make him.
Becoming someone he can recognize
Q calls the process refining himself. The word gives his growth a practical shape. He gives the example of being a good husband while still needing to improve as a father: strength in one part of life does not settle every other part. He wants to look closely enough to see where adjustments are needed. “I might be close to where I want to be, but I'm not there yet,” he says.
You may be proud of what you have built and still want to be more patient with your children. You may work hard for your household and still need to listen more carefully to your partner. Q's approach allows those truths to sit together. Progress gives him something to build on, while honesty keeps him attentive to the work ahead.
He began noticing change in the atmosphere of his relationships. There was more laughter and joking. Things felt less tense and sad. Those are the signs of improvement he offers: people being able to enjoy one another again, and ordinary interactions becoming easier. His sense of purpose was taking shape in the quality of his relationships.
The empathy he describes reaches beyond his home. He says his grandmother's death made him care more about people he did not know. He cannot undo the loss, but he can carry that awareness into the way he treats someone else. At Twin n Nem, that widening circle of care matters. Another person's struggle becomes harder to dismiss when you recognize something of your own life in it.
Taking the next step with purpose
Near the end of the interview, Q is asked what he would tell someone who was where he had been. He says he had thought about it on the way there. Instead of offering a ready answer, he would ask what that person was going to do to move out of the place they were in. The force of his question comes from the choices he has just described. He knows what it is to need relief, to dislike how he is behaving, and to reach the point of asking for help.
His urgency is best understood alongside his admission that grief can return. A memory can take someone back into the hurt. He recognizes those moments, even as he urges persistence. Within his story, action includes seeking support and accepting that there is work he cannot complete in a single decision. His question invites the listener to find a step they can take from where they are.
He mentions working out, writing, journaling, and returning to a passion as possible places to direct attention. He does not describe one activity as the answer for everyone. What he emphasizes is consistency once someone finds a constructive direction. For you, the immediate step may be making time for a conversation you have been avoiding, asking for support, or returning to something meaningful that you have set aside.
By the time Q calls himself an Awakened Dreamer, we have heard what that identity holds for him. He is still becoming. He wants to care for his family with greater awareness, keep working on his relationships, and live with an empathy he did not have before. Turning grief into purpose, in his account, happens through choices that gradually change how he shows up in the world.
If you recognized part of yourself in Q’s story, share it with someone who may need the conversation. Follow @twinnnem.llc for more real stories from ordinary people and explore Twinnnem.com for apparel created to keep the message close as you take your own next steps.
I am you, you are me, we are Twin n Nem.
