Grief Isn’t Always About Death

Someone shared this quote with me recently, and it’s been quietly sitting with me ever since:

"I don't think people understand how much of life is grief. Not just people dying, but losing the version of yourself you thought you'd become. Grieving the city you had to leave. The friends you lost not in argument, but in silence. The summer that will never come back. The feeling that maybe you peaked at 12 when you were reading books under the covers and believing in forever."

Whew. If that doesn’t land somewhere behind your ribs, are you even human?

Grief has a way of sneaking up on us. Not always in the heavy, headline moments — though of course, the death of someone we love is a seismic shift — but also in the slow, quiet drip of time passing. Of doors closing that we didn’t even realise were doors until they were locked behind us.

Sometimes, I think we expect grief to arrive in a black coat, holding lilies and a tissue. But often it shows up in the queue at Tesco. Or halfway through a song you’d forgotten you loved. Or when you stumble across a photo of yourself looking younger, more hopeful, slightly ridiculous — and you realise you miss her.

As a celebrant, I talk a lot about loss. But as a human being, I live it — like we all do. I’ve grieved for people, of course. But also for the many, many moments in life that I took for granted and that are lost to me now. For friendships that faded, not from fallout, but from sheer, unintentional neglect over the passage of time. (I lost a dear friend back in the nineties—a time where social media and mobile phones were still very much in the future—after we both moved away from the town where we lived.) For old routines, old landscapes, the way my daughters would pick me daisies when we were out on a dog walk. For my pre-lockdown wardrobe. (May it rest in peace.)

The only real antidote I know — and believe me, I’ve looked — is acceptance. Not in a shrug-your-shoulders, “oh well” kind of way. But in the quietly radical act of mindfulness: of noticing what is, and letting it be enough.

Mindfulness doesn't magic away the grief. But it does invite us to sit with it, instead of running from it or stuffing it down with biscuits and Netflix. It says: Yes, this hurts. Yes, things have changed. And yes, you’re still here. Breathing. Being. Becoming.

It reminds us that every version of ourselves — even the ones that didn’t make it to centre stage — mattered. That every place we've lived in and loved left its mark. That every lost friendship taught us something. And that maybe, just maybe, there is an abundance of joy still to come.

So here’s to grief — the sneaky kind, the slow kind, the kind that shows up when you’re looking for your car keys. May we meet it with kindness. And may we keep walking.

Because sometimes — just sometimes — something you thought was lost finds its way back. That friend I lost in the nineties recently came back into my life. By sheer fluke, she spotted my name on a local authority application form and reached out. After all those years, we picked up like no time had passed. We laughed about the adult ballet classes we once took (cringe!), our tragic 80s fashion sense (don't judge—shoulder pads and legwarmers were a vibe back then), and all the mad, brilliant things we did. It was such a joy to remember that version of ourselves — naive, maybe, but hopeful, full of plans — and to see them through the forgiving eyes of the people we've become. Not every story ends that way. But oh, when it does — it’s magic.

Grief and joy aren't opposites. They’re old friends too — growing in the same soil, each making space for the other.

#GriefTakesManyForms #MindfulnessInLoss #LifeAsItIs #HumanistCelebrant #LoveAndLettingGo #AcceptanceIsPower #CelebrantSusy