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Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

(bessstillman.substack.com)
461 points LaurenSerino | 8 comments | 18 Sep 25 14:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.426s | source | bottom
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donatj ◴[18 Sep 25 15:50 UTC] No.45291164[source]▶
One of my best friends died 12 years ago in our late 20s. I know he is dead, and yet a couple times a month I think, "Oh, I haven't talked to him in a while, I should text him!" before my logical brain kicks in and lets me know the deal.

There is a dumb part of me that wants to believe, "Oh, he probably faked his death to get out of debt." He was such a schemer, if anyone would, he would. It was an open casket funeral. I know he is dead.

It's not a disorder. I just have mental pathways built that lead to a person who was integral to my life for many years, a person who does not exist on this plane anymore. I want him back in my life. Death is just difficult.

He was a genuine source of both encouragement and constructive criticism the likes I have had not had before or since. I miss you, Meka.

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1. KurSix ◴[18 Sep 25 16:46 UTC] No.45291902[source]▶
It’s love with nowhere to go
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2. sctb ◴[18 Sep 25 18:24 UTC] No.45293177[source]▶
I love to miss people. I think missing is a complete and beautiful expression of love, just as much as having.
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3. antisthenes ◴[18 Sep 25 18:40 UTC] No.45293390[source]▶
I think you don't truly know if you love someone until you miss them for some time.
4. rhcom2 ◴[18 Sep 25 18:59 UTC] No.45293609[source]▶
"what is grief if not love persevering"
5. jadbox ◴[18 Sep 25 19:34 UTC] No.45293980[source]▶
Love is best shared. Grief can be a powerful tool to help build up healthy new relationships.
6. ◴[19 Sep 25 06:10 UTC] No.45298436[source]▶
7. khazhoux ◴[19 Sep 25 06:12 UTC] No.45298449[source]▶
That's nice, but I'm curious if this feeling that you love is from the loss of a spouse or (even more so) a child? The "unthinkable" losses.
8. tenacious_tuna ◴[19 Sep 25 16:03 UTC] No.45303219[source]▶
When I first encountered this description of grief it really resonated, but it's felt less poignant as I've gotten older, partly because I find myself grieving people who still live, and are simply too different from how I remember them or how I thought I knew them to support the relationships I want to have with them.

I suppose the principle still holds: the "love" I have for those versions of those people cannot go anywhere, but that feels dissonant with not wanting to know these people as they are, or knowing the relationship I'm wishing for is otherwise ill-fated. In either case, the relationship cannot continue, and that drive the sense of grief anyway, so maybe I'm just splitting hairs.

Such is the complex nature of grief and of human relationships, I suppose.