Grief book continued:

Losing a loved one is the number one reason people grieve. The reasons for losing that loved one can be death, separation, or a break-up of some kind. A loved one can be a human being or an animal.

Grieving a lost loved one isn’t just missing them or feeling sad that they are gone; it is that and so much more. When a loved one is lost, they haven’t just gone away for a while. They are gone. Never to return. This can be a friend moving, and you knowing you will never see them again, or someone dying, or changing in some devastating way that makes them lost to you for all time. Whatever has created the loss, it is enough to go beyond being sad, and puts one directly into the grieving process.

There are so many scenarios for losing a loved one. Grieving someone dying is easy to understand; someone being “gone” in another form is not so easy to fathom, let me give you an example:

A long time ago, I was in love with a man who lived a few states away from me. He was a gentle giant who loved to hunt and be outdoors. He had an unfortunate accident and sustained a serious head injury from a fall from a tree stand. His life, as he knew it, ended doing something he loved.

His family and I spent hours in the ICU waiting room. We were allowed to visit him one at a time for just brief periods. Although the last check he had written, before he fell from the tree, was for an engagement ring for me, I wasn’t technically family, so his parents were making all the decisions for him while he was battling for his life.

I vividly remember my name being the last thing he said before he became unconscious and underwent a craniotomy. In the moments directly following that his dad told me he wished his son had never met me. His son had lost the use of his body and mind and he knew he would lose me too.

He did recover, somewhat. He did not die but he was not the same person. His family made decisions for him that made it impossible for us to be together. I had two young children who I could not move to be near my boyfriend, and he was not able to make decisions to move near us for his continued care. It was devastating on so many levels.

Losing someone isn’t just having them die and you continue living. Losing someone can be having them become a different person and leaving you whether purposefully or not. Losing someone can be them walking away willfully or sliding away slowly into a place from which you cannot rescue them.

In my story I lost a fiance, a future, a laugh that would ring out over the phone line; I lost a family, and someone I loved. He didn’t die but the future did. I never saw him again after months of flying back and forth to his hospital.

His parents and brother and sister lost some things too but they didn’t grieve because they still had him. Sure he would never be the same but he didn’t die and they had a future with him, in his presence.

I often say that death is not the enemy; and it isn’t the worst thing that can happen. It is inevitable. But that doesn’t make it an easy transition. Death is not hardest for the one who dies, it is hardest for the ones remaining alive. Losing someone to death is final. They are not coming back. It is the ultimate ending. Maybe that is easier than having them out there in the world, just not with you. Maybe it isn’t.

That’s the thing about grief. It is so individualized because each situation is different and so is each griever. The loss of a loved one requires just that: loss and love.