Faith and Grief: Finding Light After Loss

Losing someone you love is one of the hardest things anyone can go through. For teens, it can feel confusing, overwhelming, and lonely. But for many, faith, family, and friends make the pain easier to carry. I spoke with students at Redwood High School to learn how grief has affected them—and how they found hope again.

By: Liah Rodriguez

Grief doesn’t always hit you the same way. Sometimes it comes in quietly. Other times, it knocks you down fast. The reality is, you can never really know for sure what people go through. For a lot of teens, the hardest part about losing someone is not just the sadness, but feeling like you don’t know how to deal with it.

Ethan Villarreal, ‘27, watched his mom struggle through her own loss. He wasn’t the one grieving directly, but the pain still hit hard. “It’s hard to watch,” Villarreal said. “I felt terrible for my mom just to see her go through that.”

Even when you’re not the one who lost someone, grief can affect you. Seeing someone you love in pain makes you feel powerless, like you wish you could fix it, but you can’t. And sometimes, the best thing you can do is just be there.

Grief can also show up in ways you don’t expect. It might affect your schoolwork, your sleep, your relationships, or how you see the world.

Sawyer Starbuck, ‘28, knows that feeling all too well. “I was pretty sad, my grades dropped a lot,” Starbuck said, after losing his grandmother. The sadness didn’t just stay at home, it followed him to school, into the classroom, into his daily life.

But slowly, he started finding small moments of peace. “You can just find some friends that you can talk to and you can find happy moments with them,” Starbuck said. That’s one of the biggest lessons teens shared: grief is easier when you don’t carry it alone.

Faith plays a huge role for some students. It’s not always about religion, it can be about hope, love, and believing that things will get better.

Kaitlyn Stewart, ‘27, lost her grandma when she was just a kid. It hit her hard, but her faith helped her feel less alone. “It’ll get better, and from a religious perspective, you know that we’ll see them again,” Stewart said.

For some people, believing they’ll see their loved ones again makes it easier to move forward. It doesn’t erase the sadness, but it adds something stronger: hope.

Mya Guillen, ‘27, sees faith as something that connects everything. “To me, faith means building a strong relationship with God and people around you, staying positive all the time,” Guillen said. She believes that faith and grief are tightly connected. “Yes, most definitely faith and grief are connected.”

And it’s not just students who see that link. Angelica Del Villar, a school social worker, has seen how deeply faith can shape the grieving process. “I see faith as a deeply personal and often evolving belief system that gives individuals a sense of hope, purpose, and connection,” she said. “For some, faith is rooted in religion; for others, it may come from culture, values, community, or resilience. It can provide comfort, guidance, and strength during difficult times.”

Del Villar’s insight shows that faith doesn’t always look the same for everyone, but the comfort it offers can be powerful. Whether it’s a belief in God, the strength of community, or the hope that tomorrow will be brighter, faith helps people heal in their own way.

Camilo Yepez, ‘28, still remembers how it felt when his uncle passed away. “I used to be really close with him,” Yepez said. “He just died of cancer.” That kind of loss doesn’t just go away, it sticks with you.

“It affected my whole family,” Yepez said. “He was somebody that I’ve been with my entire life.” Losing someone who was always there makes everything feel different, like a piece of your world is missing.

But even with the pain, Yepez holds onto hope. “I hope everyone has a better day, and it didn’t affect your whole life, because you should have better days coming your way.”

That’s something everyone who shared their story seemed to agree on: grief is real, and it hurts,but it doesn’t last forever.

If you’re going through grief, you don’t have to have all the answers. Maybe you talk to someone. Maybe you lean into your faith. Or maybe you just take it one day at a time. Whatever path you choose, you’re not alone, and better days really are coming.

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