The Reality of Grief and Grieving: Living With Loss 15 Years On

Grief is not a moment in time. It is not something we pass through, as though moving from one stage to another, reaching some final point where we are “over it.” Grief is a shadow that stretches long, sometimes barely noticeable, sometimes looming large over everything. It is a part of us, shaping the way we move through the world, the way we love, the way we remember.

Fifteen years have passed since I lost someone I loved deeply. Even now, I hesitate to say that I have “healed,” because that word suggests closure, an end point that never really arrives. What I have done is learn how to live alongside grief, to make room for it in my life rather than waiting for it to leave.

The Trauma of the Final Days

The months and weeks leading up to their passing were some of the hardest I have ever lived through. Watching someone you love slip away, feeling utterly powerless to stop it, is its own kind of trauma. You do everything you can—sitting by the bedside, speaking softly, holding their hand, willing your love to be enough to keep them here. And yet, death comes anyway.

Palliative care is often spoken about in gentle terms—comfort, peace, dignity—but the reality is messy and raw. The helplessness, the exhaustion, the endless questioning of whether you are doing enough or making the right decisions. There is the heartbreak of witnessing their pain and the unbearable knowledge that you cannot take it away. And then, finally, the moment you have been dreading—the last breath, the stillness, the finality.

In the immediate aftermath, grief is all-consuming. It is heavy, suffocating, relentless. It is in the silence of the house, in the unspoken words that will never be answered, in the aching absence where they once were. And yet, in those early days, you are surrounded by people. There are condolences, messages of support, funeral arrangements to be made. It feels like a blur, like you are moving through water, disconnected from reality.

And then, after the funeral, after the visitors stop coming, after the world expects you to return to some version of normal—that is when grief truly settles in.

The Years That Follow

I used to think grief was something I would one day overcome. That there would be a time when it no longer hurt, when I would wake up and not feel the weight of their absence. But that is not how grief works. It does not vanish; it shifts. It becomes something you carry, something that intertwines with who you are.

The first year is filled with milestones. The first birthday without them. The first holiday, the first anniversary of their passing. Each one feels like a fresh wound, reopening what you thought had begun to heal. And yet, as the years go by, grief does not disappear—it simply changes shape.

There are days when it feels distant, like a faint echo of the past. And then, there are days when it hits unexpectedly, sharp and sudden. A song on the radio, a familiar scent, a fleeting memory that comes out of nowhere. You find yourself reaching for the phone to call them before remembering, once again, that they are gone.

People assume that after a certain amount of time, grief becomes easier. In some ways, it does—you learn how to function, how to carry on, how to live a life that no longer includes them in the way it once did. But there is also a loneliness in long-term grief. The world moves on, but you are still here, carrying this loss, long after others have stopped asking how you are coping.

The Unanswered Questions

One of the hardest things about losing someone is the questions that will never be answered. Did they know how much they were loved? Did I say enough? Did I do enough? Could I have changed anything? These thoughts are endless, looping in the quiet moments, keeping you awake at night.

And then there are the things they will never see—the changes in your life, the moments you wish you could share. The way you have grown, the struggles you have faced, the joys they will never witness. The people you have become without them.

Fifteen years later, I still wonder. I still long for one more conversation, one more embrace, one more moment to say everything I never had the chance to say. But grief teaches you that there are no perfect endings. There is only what was, what is, and what remains.

Living With Loss

If I have learned anything in these years, it is that grief does not mean being stuck in the past. It means carrying love forward. It means honouring the person you lost by living in a way that would make them proud. It means allowing yourself to feel their absence without letting it consume you.

There is no right way to grieve. There is no timeline, no set of rules that make the process easier. But there is life after loss. A different life, a changed life, but life nonetheless.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped waiting for grief to leave. Instead, I learned to walk with it. It is no longer a burden, but a companion—a quiet presence that reminds me of love, of memory, of the unbreakable bonds that death cannot erase.

And in that, there is a kind of peace. Not the peace of forgetting, but the peace of knowing that love endures, even in absence. That grief is not just about loss, but about the depth of love that made the loss so profound. And that, perhaps, is the greatest lesson of all.