Grieving the Living
A Love Letter to the Ones Still Here, but Changed
When you lose a loved one, the pain is intense. Suffocating. And while the passage of time softens the edges, the ache never really goes away.
But with death, there is closure: you know your loved one is never coming back.
How, then, do we grieve when the people we love have changed so much that the person we once knew feels gone forever?
Throughout this piece, ‘you’ isn’t just one person. It’s pieces of several people I’ve loved and lost in different ways, even while they’re still alive.
And that’s the hardest part — realizing that people I once trusted with my innermost thoughts and dreams no longer feel safe.
Conversations skim the surface, reduced to the weather, errands — or worse, they turn sharp without warning. Because in truth, no topic feels safe anymore. Even the tragedy of a school shooting, something that should unite us in sorrow, somehow splinters into politics.
And then comes the sting of being called “distant” or “cold,” when really, you’re just trying to protect your heart — or keep the peace while biting back everything you want to say. It’s easier to seem aloof than to risk the pain of another hollow, fractured conversation.
Sometimes it’s hard to even look your loved one in the eye, because the respect you once felt has eroded.
On occasion, I still catch glimpses of the old version of the people I am grieving. They show up every once in a while, though less and less as time passes — a quick grimace or eye roll at something that’s always annoyed you, before you had a chance to filter it. Asking for my advice. Teasing my oldest daughter about having a boyfriend — and suddenly I’m pulled back to when you used to chase me around the house, pants hiked up to your chest, laughing, “I’m Jessie’s boyfriend, Urkel!”
I hear you brag about how smart your grandchildren are, and it reminds me of when you once bragged about me to the wrestling team you coached just because I could spell “Milwaukee.” Later you bragged again when I earned my doctorate. But now, it feels like you don’t trust anything I say.
And I remember when a young mother nearly killed her infant — her baby left with broken bones throughout her body. I was furious, but you showed compassion. You wrote to her in prison. Now, you talk about immigrants as if they’re all criminals who deserve to be locked away, when their only “crime” is searching for a better life.
When the “oldies” play on the radio, I think about you. I’m grateful you introduced me to great music when I was young, and now I share it with my own kids. Even though I rolled my eyes as a teenager, I wish you were here in the car again, singing and explaining the stories behind songs like Mr. Bojangles, Cat’s in the Cradle, and In the Ghetto. The sad part is that you could be here. But it’s different now. You don’t even listen to the oldies anymore.
And it’s not just the music. I miss the way you told stories at family dinners, weaving history and humor until we were all leaning in for the ending. I miss your pep talks when I needed encouragement, when you’d remind me: I believe in you. Never give up. Can’t isn’t a word. These weren’t small things. They were the threads that stitched our lives together, and now those threads are fraying.
On one hand, these glimpses bring relief — proof that you’re still in there somewhere. On the other hand, they cut deep, because every memory of who you were sharpens the ache of who you are now. And that ache feels so much like grief, looping through stages I once only associated with death.
I once studied the ‘stages of grief’ in college — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. But grieving the living doesn’t look like that. For me, it circles through something different:
Self-doubt: Am I remembering incorrectly? What if I’m wrong? Is it just me?
Anger: How could you support this? Why won’t you listen?
Empathy: You’re still good at heart, caught up in something bigger.
Disbelief: How can you make so many excuses? You’re too intelligent not to see.
Hope: Maybe if I talk to you. Maybe if you read my work. Maybe this line will be the one that wakes you.
Grief: They’re never coming back, are they?
Maybe acceptance belongs on this list too. But I’m not there. How do you accept the loss of someone who’s still alive? How do you let go when hope keeps whispering it’s not final?
Unlike grief after death, these stages don’t move in order toward resolution. They circle back. Sometimes I feel them all in a single conversation: rage boiling under my skin, then sadness at the memory of who you were, then empathy because I know you’re not cruel, just caught in something I can’t reach. It is whiplash for the heart.
You can’t fully let go because they’re alive, but you can’t fully hold on because it hurts too much. That push and pull keeps the wound raw.
Death brings rituals, sympathy, communal acknowledgment. Grieving the living brings none of that. There are no bereavement days, no casseroles delivered to the door, no grace for the unknown mourning. And unlike death, you can’t silence the whisper: maybe one day, they’ll return. Hope becomes the cruelest companion, a flicker that comforts even as it torments.
I’ve realized this isn’t just conflict. It’s grief. It’s mourning the people I still love, because love doesn’t forget. And it doesn’t let go without a fight.
And I know I’m not the only one. Across kitchen tables, across church pews, across family group texts, countless people are grieving the living. Quietly. Lonely. And for all its invisibility, it is real.
Maybe naming it is the first step. It’s how we begin to carry it together.
If this spoke to you, a “❤️” helps it reach others who may be wrestling with the same questions.
Have you felt the grief of losing someone who’s still alive? I’d love to hear your story in the comments — your words may remind someone else that they’re not alone in this.
In a future piece, I’ll share reader-requested guidance on how to manage these difficult relationships with care.
For some of us, this grief began when loved ones were swept up in Trump’s MAGA movement. Naming that isn’t about sides — it’s about holding onto truth. About people. About decency.
If you—or someone you love—is quietly rethinking everything, this is a gentle place to start:
👉 Leaving MAGA
Whew this one hit me in the feels! ❤️