The Grief of Estrangement

“Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”

There is a grief that society does not know how to hold: the grief of estrangement. The parent you have had to distance yourself from. The sibling you no longer speak to. The friendship that ended not in death but in silence.

This grief is complicated by the fact that the person is still alive. There are no rituals for it. No condolences. No casseroles. People do not know what to say, and so they say nothing, or they say the wrong thing: "Have you tried talking to them?"

But the loss is real. The relationship you hoped for — the parent who would have been different, the family that would have been safe — that relationship is gone. And it deserves to be mourned, even if the person still exists.

You are allowed to grieve what was not, as well as what was.

Related Reflections

Themes that often travel alongside grief.