11/15/2025
🪶For those who grieve. A beautiful explanation of how the loss of our dear loved ones change us.
When someone you love dies, it’s not just their absence you feel. It’s something deeper. Something harder to name.
In those early months after losing my brother, I came across a quote by C.S. Lewis that has stayed with me.
I was drawn to his writing because he didn’t sugarcoat anything. He let his grief spill onto the page exactly as it was.
And in trying to understand his own loss, Lewis said something that stops any grieving heart cold.
He said that when his friend died, it wasn’t just the loss of his friend that shattered him. It was the part of himself that only his friend could bring out, would never be brought out again.
And the more time has passed, the more I realize just how true it is for so many of us.
Because there were sides of you that only they got to see. A certain laugh that came out of you effortlessly. A softness in your voice you did not hear with anyone else. The way you felt lighter or braver or more alive simply because they were near.
The parts of you that unfolded only in the safety of being fully known.
And when they’re gone, those parts of you go quiet too.
That’s the thing we never expect. Not just missing who they were, but missing who you were when they were here.
And you feel it in the smallest moments, too. Reaching for a story you no longer tell. Catching your reflection and realizing your smile has changed. Missing a spark inside you that you did not realize they had been lighting all along. Wondering why life feels dimmer and why you do too.
It’s a hidden grief. Missing someone and missing yourself. But I’ve learned those parts didn’t disappear.
Because as much as loss takes from us, it also leaves something behind. A love that reshapes itself. In the way you let their humor, their courage, and their kindness ripple through everything you do.
It’s in the way you listen more closely, love more fiercely, soften when someone needs it, and move through a world they once moved through with you.
Maybe that’s the quiet work of grief: learning how to keep those parts of you alive.
Not to replace them. Not to move on.
But to honor the version you became because they were here.
(Copied)
