Grief, gratitude and God: A holiday message for those carrying heavy hearts

The holidays bring joy and grief together. Dr. Alveda King shares how faith and gratitude can coexist during hard times, offering hope to families.

Dr. Alveda King is the Chair of the American Dream Coalition at the America First Policy Institute. She has been appointed by President Donald Trump and Secretary Brooke Rollins as a Senior Advisor on Faith and Community Outreach at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

She’s not alone. Across our nation, families will set one less place at the table, hang one less stocking or hear one less familiar voice. Some will grieve a recent loss; others will feel the echo of one that never fades. I understand that pain. My family has lived it.

When my uncle Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, our world was shaken. A few years later came more heartbreak: the murder of my grandmother, Mama King, and the untimely death of my father, A.D. King, whose passing was never fully investigated as it should have been.