Life has a weird way of testing people. One moment it offers joy, and the next brings heartbreak. Something Jordyn Woods knows all too well. Over the past few days, she steered across a sea of emotions, trying to balance immense grief with a joyous family milestone.

Woods recently traveled to Las Vegas to celebrate her brother’s wedding, a momentous occasion for her family. But even amid the festivities, sorrow loomed large. Just days earlier, she buried a friend. She mourned a friend who lost her battle with breast cancer. The weight of this loss was something she couldn’t shake, even as she put on a brave face for her loved ones.

Instead of withdrawing from reality and locking herself in, Woods found comfort in togetherness. Her latest posts from the wedding show her cherishing the fleeting moments of happiness, smiling alongside loved ones. “we love LOVE. 🎰 can’t believe my little brother is the first to get married out of the bunch AND I love that it was just a few of us. sometimes less truly is more ❤️” she wrote, cherishing this happy surprise.

Meanwhile, 416 miles away in San Francisco, her longtime boyfriend Karl-Anthony Towns faced his own trials. The New York Knicks star made his return to court after a brief absence. While primary reports left his reasons for sitting out vague, it now seems clear that he was also grappling with the emotional toll of Woods’s loss.

Love, loss, and life Apart: How Woods and Towns find strength

Woods and Towns’ relationship has endured through seasons of triumph and tragedy. Throughout their grief, they’ve been each other’s rock. In 2020, Towns suffered an unimaginable loss, losing his mother, Jacqueline Towns, and six other family members to COVID-19. Towns credited Woods for helping him stay strong.

“My woman has held me down more than the world knows,” KAT wrote in 2021 as a response to a fan question on IG stories, later adding, “I would be remiss if I don’t acknowledge the power a good woman can have in your life.”

Woods reposted his words, calling it “THIS😭❤️,” while sharing how their bond grew deeper over shared loss. “One day we will tell everyone the full story,” Woods wrote at the time. “But our relationship has always been deeper than a physical attraction. Friendship came first… Bonding over grief and pain can be the origin of your strongest relationships.”

That understanding has been a defining element of their relationship. But the circumstances forced them to grieve separately this time around. Family, for Jordyn Woods, has always been a haven. Their presence offered her a much-needed distraction and a reminder of love’s enduring power.

Although this wedding celebrated a new start, it also goes to show how resilient we have to be to carry grief while moving forward.

As for Towns, his return to the court is an example of dealing with emotions and still showing up for the team. The shared understanding of loss has been a defining element of his and Woods’s bond. In fact, in an interview with Page Six in October 2021, the socialite clearly explained how grief helped them bond. Particularly since they have been friends for years, during which Jordyn lost her father to cancer (2017).

“We would talk all the time about life, about everything, and then after his mother passed, it brought us a lot closer because I had gone through the loss of a parent as well, and so being that crutch for each other, I guess, led to something more,” she shared.

And the thing about grief? It doesn’t come knocking and, without a doubt, doesn’t stop for life’s big landmarks. It just lingers in the background, waiting to hit you like a freight train. Even so, Jordyn Woods and Karl Anthony-Towns have shown us that it can lay the foundation for a very strong relationship when met with unwavering support and understanding.