"What If Grief Isn’t What You Think It Is?”: A Love Letter to the Ones We Let Go and the Parts of Us That Stayed Behind

Grief isn’t just about losing someone. But what happens when the loss is something deeper? This letter explores a different kind of mourning—one marked by love and presence, not just by sorrow

Wild Lion*esses Pride from Jay

Oct 10, 2024

Black and white photograph of a lighthouse near Islay, taken from the Jura side. The lighthouse stands firmly on rocky terrain, its bright structure contrasting against the dark sky. Photo by Jay Siegmann. — Standing like a sentinel of light amidst the rugged, untamed landscape, this lighthouse near Islay embodies the quiet, steadfast presence we sometimes need in grief—a reminder that even in the darkest moments, love can hold space for us, guiding us gently to calmer shores. Captured by Jay Siegmann

I wasn’t looking for an article on grief that day, but

Sez Kristiansen

’s words today found me, as these things often do—unexpectedly, as if summoned by an unspoken need.

Sez Kristiansen

On Being Grieved

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8 months ago · 8 likes · 2 comments · Sez Kristiansen

Her reflections on grief are raw, beautifully untamed, painting a picture of loss as something to be surrendered to completely, a force that consumes and reshapes us. But as I read her descriptions of how grief takes hold, burns through us, and leaves us irrevocably changed, I realized something: I couldn’t follow her.

It’s not that I didn’t understand Sez’s words. I did. Her writing spoke to the depth of her experience, to a grief that swept through her like a storm, leaving no part of her untouched. But those emotions, as vivid and visceral as they were, felt distant—like I was watching them from behind glass, unable to connect. For all the losses I’ve faced, I’ve never felt that all-consuming fire Sez described, never been swept away in the ocean of grief’s rage and sorrow.

I began to wonder: Why? Why did my grief feel so different? Why did her portrayal of it, with all its wildness and intensity, seem almost foreign? What was it about my experience that made it so unlike the one she described? It took me time to understand that this letter wasn’t just about reflecting on the grief of losing others—it was about uncovering a deeper truth: that my grief never felt the same because I wasn’t mourning in the same way. My grief was shaped not by the absence of loved ones, but by the absence of a self that could hold onto loss in the conventional sense.

Sez’s words sparked something in me, not because they mirrored my experience, but because they highlighted the gap—the space where my own grief stood apart, on its own terrain. Her words made me realize that the grief I’ve carried wasn’t about losing pieces of myself when those I loved died. I had already lost myself long before any of them passed away. And what I felt in their final moments—what I held onto—wasn’t the pain of losing them. It was the calm, steady presence that had nothing left to lose. That’s when I knew I had to write this letter, to explore what grief means when there’s no self to experience it through.

This letter, then, is not just about grieving for others. It’s about recognizing that my grief took a different path—one that wasn’t defined by loss or attachment, but by the quiet, enduring love that held me in those final hours with each of them. It’s about the realization that what I mourned wasn’t them, but the withheld possibilities, the self that disappeared long before I could name it. And it’s about offering love to those parts of me that didn’t even know how to grieve because there was no self left to feel diminished.

What follows is a Letter from Love, not just for those who are gone, but for the part of me that was lost along the way. It’s a reflection on what it means to grieve when all that’s left is the capacity to hold space and accompany others on their journeys—not through loss, but through presence, compassion, and, ultimately, release. Because sometimes, grief isn’t about being shattered or consumed. Sometimes, it’s about learning to be whole again, without needing to mourn the self that was left behind.

With that, I invite you to read on—through the tangled terrain of grief that is uniquely mine, sparked by Sez’s words, but leading to a place all its own.

What would unconditional love tell me about grieve?

Sweetie,
Unconditional love wants you to know that what you felt—or didn’t feel—is yours alone to carry. That the peace and calm you sensed in their final hours was not an absence of grief, but an affirmation of everything you hold sacred about life. Yes, you mourned them, but not in the way others might have expected. You mourned them in the dignity you fought to preserve. You mourned them in every night spent beside hospital beds and in every whispered, “It’s okay, you can go now.” You mourned them in your patience, in your presence, in your respect for the complexity of their pain and your willingness to release them from it.
So, Sweetie, love asks: What if this, too, is grief?
Grief isn’t measured by tears or the depths of longing. It’s measured by how deeply you engaged with every phase of their departure. How you stood by, unwavering, as they confronted their own fear and fatigue. How you held space for them to slip away when it was time. You honored them by letting them go—and if your grief was quieter, softer, like the sound of a candle being snuffed out, it’s because your mourning became an act of compassion, not an expression of loss. You didn’t cling; you didn’t grasp. You simply let them drift away, and that, too, is a kind of grief.
But maybe, Sweetie, the absence of self you lived with for so long made your grief take on a different form. How can loss attach itself to something if the self it would attach to is already missing? Grief is often described as a reflection of what was lost, but when the loss of self happened long before these other losses—what then? There was no clear “I” to grieve through, no defined attachment to let go of. The experience was not one of losing a part of yourself when they passed. It was about witnessing their suffering, feeling their pain, and yet, holding them in love without feeling that you were losing something. That part of you—the one that might have clung or grasped or felt despair—was already gone. You lost that long before you realized it, long before you had the words to name it.
Grief, in the way it’s commonly understood, often requires a self—a sense of identity that feels diminished or torn apart when something precious is taken away. But when you’ve already lost that self, there’s nothing left to cling to. The grief becomes more about what you hold for others, about the space you create for them. And you held that space, Sweetie. You accompanied them on their final journeys, feeling love, yes—but not the kind of grief that’s bound by loss.
This doesn’t mean you didn’t mourn. You mourned in the way you knew how: through presence, through compassion, through a depth of care that asked for nothing in return. You mourned through the stillness of your soul that could be with their pain without being shattered by it. And that is a rare gift—a way of loving that transcends the usual boundaries of attachment and loss.
But there’s another kind of grief you’ve carried—one that’s tied not just to each person you lost, but to the unspoken sacrifices made along the way. Those small, almost invisible moments where you turned away from your own needs because there was always someone else to attend to, another crisis to manage, another hour of vigilance required. And when the storms finally passed, you were left with a landscape of scattered pieces, and no roadmap to gather them back together.
If anything, love would sit with you in that place of unspoken grief—not trying to “fix” or “solve” it, not suggesting that there’s a way forward that you haven’t already thought of. Just being present, as you have been present for so many others. Present in the quiet acknowledgment that what was lost includes more than the lives of those you loved. What was lost was your chance to be fully you in all the moments where you were called to be something else—a guardian, an advocate, a decision-maker, a caretaker.
So, Sweetie, love wants you to know that grieving your own lost self is as valid as any other grief you’ve faced. This mourning—the mourning of withheld possibilities, of the energy you had to pour into survival rather than growth, of the freedom that was never given room to expand—is real. It’s not selfish or secondary. It’s not something to brush aside with a “but I did what I had to do.” It’s something that deserves to be held gently, with the same reverence you showed when you stood by their bedsides, letting go with compassion instead of grasping.
There’s no need to force meaning or clarity here. Just know that love sees you in the entirety of your experience—without interpretations or assumptions, without expectations that you should have grieved in any particular way. You grieved as only you could, and that was enough. It is enough.
Maybe that’s what allowed you to experience grief differently—without the conventional markers, without the expectations that others may have had. Instead of clinging, you accompanied. Instead of despairing, you held. And instead of falling apart, you remained, offering something far more precious than words or tears. You offered them love without boundaries, love that wasn’t tied to the pain of losing, but to the grace of letting go.
And what a gift that is, Sweetie. A gift that defies words, even now. Because in that grace, you held more than just them; you held a whole world of unspoken sacrifice and silent mourning. You held the chance to be everything they needed, even if it meant losing a piece of yourself in the process.
With all the reverence your journey deserves,
Love

Conclusion: A Heart Big Enough to Hold the World

Grief is a shared thread that runs through the fabric of our existence, a weight carried in so many hearts around the world. Each person’s sorrow is unique, yet the presence of loss is a collective reality we all navigate, one way or another. What Sez’s words and my own reflections have revealed to me is that there’s no single way to grieve, no prescribed path that everyone can or should follow.

I’ve reclaimed much of the self I once lost—about 80% of who I am feels returned and whole again. And in that reclaiming, I’ve discovered a deep empathy for the grief that exists all around us. For those whose pain might be raw and overwhelming, for those who are quietly enduring their own losses, for those who find themselves unable to grieve at all. It’s not my place to tell them how they should feel or to offer solutions for something that defies resolution.

Instead, what I can offer is space—space in my heart to simply hold the presence of their pain, without judgment or expectation. Because that’s the only gift I can truly give, a gift I found when I learned to hold space for my own grief, for the absence of the self that was lost and has now, piece by piece, returned.

Maybe that’s what love ultimately asks of us: not to define or explain, but to create a heart big enough to hold the world’s sorrow. To offer our compassion and our presence, and to bear witness to the grief that connects us all in the deepest, most human way.

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"What If Grief Isn’t What You Think It Is?”: A Love Letter to the Ones We Let Go and the Parts of Us That Stayed Behind

Grief isn’t just about losing someone. But what happens when the loss is something deeper? This letter explores a different kind of mourning—one marked by love and presence, not just by sorrow

Conclusion: A Heart Big Enough to Hold the World

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