Grieving Someone Who Is Still Alive

There are so many reasons to grieve, and not all of them involve death. Sometimes we grieve

someone who is still very much alive but is no longer part of our life.

A vibrant rose garden in full bloom on a sunny day, showcasing a variety of colorful roses surrounded by lush greenery and manicured pathways.

I once had a best friend who helped me through one of the most difficult times of my life—the

five and a half years of my son’s diagnosis and grueling cancer treatments. We raised our

children together. She was there through hospital stays, fear, exhaustion, and uncertainty. She wasn’t just my friend; she felt like family.

When my husband was accepted into graduate school on the opposite coast, we had to move. I was devastated when my friend didn’t come to our going-away party or stop by the house to say goodbye. I was hurt and confused. How could someone who had been such an important part of my life not even say goodbye? As we were leaving town, I asked my husband to stop at her house. She answered the door in tears. That was when I understood.

She hadn’t stayed away because she didn’t care. She stayed away because saying goodbye was too painful. She was grieving the loss of our everyday life together, and she simply couldn’t face it. Suddenly, I felt terrible for being upset with her. It had never occurred to me that she was grieving too.

We stayed in touch during the two years I was away. During that time, we both had babies, born only six months apart. She begged me to move back and even offered to babysit my daughters for free while my husband was still in graduate school and did his internships.

When I returned, our friendship picked up again. She was like a second mother to my girls.

Life, however, has a way of changing things. She moved across town, and eventually we moved to the same area. A few years later, she moved again, this time to the other side of Puget Sound. Distance made getting together more difficult. We both made new friends who lived closer, and gradually our friendship began to fade.

At first, I tried to hold on. I would make the drive to see her. She rarely came back to our

neighborhood. I called regularly, but eventually she stopped returning my calls. I began calling her at work just so I could reach her. She would tell me she was busy, which I understood, and I would ask her to call me when she got home. She never did. Eventually, I stopped calling.

There was no argument. No dramatic falling-out. No moment when either of us said, This

friendship is over. It simply disappeared. And that was its own kind of grief.

When someone dies, we understand why we are grieving. There are rituals surrounding the loss. People acknowledge our pain. They send cards, bring food, attend services, and ask how we are doing.

But when someone is still alive, the grief can be harder to explain. There may be no funeral, no sympathy cards, and no clear ending. There are often unanswered questions.

What happened? Did I do something wrong? Why didn’t she tell me? Could we have fixed it?

That uncertainty can make letting go especially difficult. The emotions can look very much like other kinds of grief—sadness, confusion, loneliness, anger, and sometimes even hopelessness. You are grieving not only the person but also the relationship you once had, the memories you shared, and the future you assumed would include one another.

For a long time, I wished my friend had simply told me how she felt. Maybe we could have talked it through. Maybe we could have saved our friendship. Or perhaps we would have discovered that our lives had simply taken us in different directions.

I will never know. And accepting that was part of my grieving.

Today, I am at peace with it. I can look back on our friendship with gratitude instead of focusing only on how it ended. She was there for me during an extraordinarily difficult chapter of my life, and I will always love her for that.

There is a saying that some people come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. I once believed she would be there for a lifetime. Instead, she was there for a season—a very important season when I desperately needed a friend. And perhaps that can be enough.

Letting go does not erase what someone meant to us. It does not make the friendship less real or the memories less precious. Sometimes letting go simply means accepting that a relationship has ended even when we never received the explanation or goodbye we wanted.

I still love my friend. I still treasure what we shared. But I have finally let her go.

Be well,

Shirley