Grief doesn’t just show up when someone dies. Sometimes it comes quietly—when a relationship ends, when a parent becomes unsafe, when a version of you fades away. This is for the grief that no one brings casseroles for.
Not all grief comes with black clothes and memorials.
Not all grief is understood.
Not all grief is honored.
Sometimes grief shows up quietly.
When a relationship ends but the person is still alive.
When a parent you once trusted becomes a stranger.
When a best friend stops texting.
When you leave a job, a church, a dream… and part of yourself with it.
This is the grief that doesn’t get sympathy cards.
No one says “I’m sorry for your loss.”
No one brings casseroles.
But it still cracks your chest wide open. Because as David Kessler said, "We can't compare grief. Loss is loss."
📚 No One Teaches Us How to Grieve
Nobody warns you how hard it is to explain ambiguous loss.
Especially in a world that still expects you to “move on” before you’ve even figured out what just broke.
You end up trying to grieve in silence.
Alone.
Unsure whether you’re allowed to even call it grief.
So let me be the one to say it:
You are allowed to grieve what didn’t happen.
You are allowed to grieve the people still living.
You are allowed to grieve the version of you that no longer fits.
🌱 The Loss That Had No Name
I’ve grieved people who didn’t die.
I’ve lost relationships I thought believed in my bones would last forever.
I’ve watched the slow erosion of family ties and had to choose my peace over their presence.
There’s a grief that comes from setting boundaries.
There’s a grief that comes from healing.
There’s grief in growth.
It’s the natural order of things—chaos, destruction, creation.
Grief is part of that cycle. It breaks us open so something new can be born.
It’s compost for the next version of us, even if we don’t know what that will look like yet.
And yeah, that sounds poetic.
But when you’re in it? It just feels like shit.
And you still have to walk through it.
I was in the middle of divorce proceedings when I heard Brené Brown's podcast episode of Unlocking Us featuring David Kessler. I remember the overwhelm, the exhaustion, and a sadness in my body that I couldn't explain. As I listened to this lesson on navigating this taboo topic, I noticed the published date: March 2020. They recorded this episode during the start of lock down.
I have never heard of another time where nearly every person on the planet experienced the same thing together, and that it was GRIEF just made it more powerful, for good and for bad.
Most of us USED to be able to say we didn't have experience with this type of grief. But Covid changed all that. We all lost unnamed things:
Musicals that never got to be performed.
Graduations held on Zoom.
Births with just one support person in the room.
Disruption of vital routines for self and others.
Weddings with only 6 guests.
Final goodbyes said over FaceTime.
Hugs. So many hugs.
First birthdays with no balloons.
Touch. Ritual. Milestones. Magic.
Feeling safe in a crowded room.
When you feel like you can’t possibly sit with someone else’s pain—pull up this memory.
Sit with them the way you wish someone had sat with you.
Not to fix it. Just to stay.
🚫🛠️ What Grief Actually Needs (Because We Were Never Taught)
Even with permission, we don’t know how to talk about it.
We don’t know how to hold space for it.
And we damn sure don’t know how to sit with someone else in their pain without rushing to “fix” it.
"At least you had time with them."
"Everything happens for a reason"
"You'll grow from this."
"This is happening for you."
No.
Grief doesn’t want platitudes.
Grief wants a witness.
Remember that we need more people who can say:
“I see you. I’m with you. I don’t need you to be okay right now.”
Because grief isn’t a problem. It’s a human response.
To love. To loss. To letting go.
It’s not linear--sometimes we come back to the same stage over and over and over again.
It’s not clean.
...And it doesn’t have a deadline.
💔 The Ache of What Could’ve Been
There’s a specific pain in grieving someone who’s still breathing.
You wonder:
Should I reach out?
What if I say the wrong thing?
Would they even care?
The closure never comes cleanly.
Sometimes it doesn’t come at all.
Sometimes, the healthiest thing you can do is walk away—and mourn the idea of who they were, or who you hoped they’d be.
Estrangement. Divorce.
Letting go of toxic family.
Seeing a friend you thought would always be with you, walk out of your life by choice.
Watching your child transition into someone new and mourning the imagined path that no longer fits.
Grieving the version of yourself that played small to survive.
It’s all real.
It all counts.
Because the body doesn't know the difference between the types of grief.
It doesn’t sort it by category or social approval.
It just feels the emptiness. The shift. The missing.
Whether it’s death or divorce or disconnection—your nervous system still takes the hit.
🌀 Meaning as the Sixth Stage of Grief
Kessler worked closely with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who first introduced the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
With the blessing of her family, he introduced a sixth stage: finding meaning.
Finding meaning doesn’t erase the pain.
It just gives it somewhere to land.
Somewhere to take root.
It’s not a requirement—it’s an invitation.
And it doesn’t happen during the grief.
It happens when the storm quiets.
When you’ve cried yourself out and you’re sitting in the stillness of what now.
That’s when meaning might find you.
🕯️ Let’s Name It
There’s a grief that comes from setting boundaries.
There’s a grief that comes from healing.
There’s grief in growth.
It’s not about staying stuck in it.
It’s about recognizing it.
Making space for it.
And not gaslighting yourself into pretending it didn’t happen.
You’re allowed to hold joy and profound loss in the same breath.
You’re allowed to miss what was and still be grateful for what’s next.
💭 Reflection Prompt:
What are you grieving that no one sees?
And what would it feel like to give yourself a little more permission to name it?
Feel free to share your reflection!
Be strong. Do it scared. 💜
