There are no words for what you’re feeling right now.
I know this because I’ve searched for them myself.
2025 brought me a loss too big to measure. I’ve turned over every phrase, every piece of advice, every well-meaning sentiment. And none of them touched the place where the pain lives.
So I won’t pretend to have answers.
I won’t tell you that time heals all wounds or that everything happens for a reason. Those words don’t belong here.
The unexpected death of a loved one shatters everything you thought you knew about the world. What I can offer is this: I see your grief. I see how your world has shattered. I’m not here to fix it. I’ll just be here.
Table of Contents
When Everything Splits Open
When someone you love dies suddenly, the world doesn’t just change. Yes, it splits open.
You wake up in a reality that looks the same but feels completely foreign. The coffee still brews. The sun still rises. People still go to work, laugh at jokes, make plans for the weekend.
But you.
You’re living in an entirely different universe.
This is what I call ‘the underground loss’. On the surface, nothing has changed for everyone else. But beneath, in the place where you actually live, everything has been rearranged. The furniture of your inner life has been overturned. The walls have crumbled. And you’re standing in the rubble, trying to remember what used to be where.
The unexpected death of a loved one does this. It takes the world you knew and makes it unrecognisable.
And the strangest part? No one else can see it.
Time Has Stopped, and Nothing Feels Real
Time has stopped.
Or maybe it’s moving, but you can’t feel it anymore. Days blur together. You look at the clock and realise you’ve been staring at the wall for three hours, or three minutes, you honestly can’t tell.
Nothing feels real.
You go through the motions. You answer the phone. You nod at the right moments. You might even smile when someone tells you to take care of yourself.
But inside, you’re frozen.
This disorientation is not a sign that you’re falling apart. It’s a sign that your mind is trying to process something it was never designed to process. The sudden, irreversible absence of someone who was supposed to be here.
Your mind needs time to catch up with this new reality. And right now, it simply can’t.
If your mind feels broken, that’s because, in a way, it is.
Not permanently. Not irreparably. But right now, yes, your brain is not functioning the way it used to.
Sudden loss rearranges your mind. It takes away skill sets you’ve had since childhood. You might find that you can’t even read a book anymore. The words slide off the page before they reach your brain. You can’t follow a conversation. You forget what you were saying mid-sentence.
This is real. This is biological.
Grief floods your system with stress hormones. Your prefrontal cortex – the part of your brain responsible for planning, decision-making, and focus – goes offline. Your amygdala, the fear centre, takes over.
You’re not crazy. You’re not weak. You’re just human.
And your body is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do when the unthinkable happens.
I See You in This Darkness
I want to tell you something, and I need you to hear it.
My heart is shattered, still.
Not in the same way yours is. Not from the same loss. But I recognise your pain because I’ve felt my own. I know what it’s like to live in a world that keeps turning while you stand still.
I bow to you.
Not in pity. Not in sympathy. But in recognition.
Your grief is holy. It’s the most human thing you’ll ever experience. And it deserves to be witnessed, not fixed.
So if you’re reading this in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, unable to breathe, unable to imagine how you’ll get through tomorrow – I see you.
You Are Alone in This, Even When People Are Near
People are around you. They bring casseroles. They send cards. They say things like “I’m here if you need anything” and “You’re so strong.”
And yet, you are alone.
Not because they don’t care. But because no one else carries the exact nuance of what you’ve lost.
No one else knows the way your person laughed when they were truly delighted. The specific warmth of their hand in yours. The inside jokes that only the two of you understood.
This loneliness is part of the grief. It’s the private, untranslatable weight of loving someone who is no longer here.
And it’s OK to feel alone in this. Because in some ways, you are.
Grief Is Not a Problem to Be Solved
Let me say this clearly: Your pain is not wrong.
It doesn’t need to be fixed. It doesn’t need to be managed, minimised, or hurried along.
This blog isn’t here to give you a “happy ending” or help you “return to normal.” Because that old you, the one who lived before this loss, is gone.
And I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
What I can share with you instead is this: a way to carry the weight. Not to put it down, but to learn how to move with it.
Because the truth is, you will carry this for the rest of your life. We will carry this for the rest of our lives. The question is not whether we’ll feel better. The question is how we’ll integrate this loss into the life you’re still living.
And You Don’t Have to Move On…
People will tell you to “move on.”
They’ll say it with kindness. With concern. With the genuine hope that you’ll feel better soon.
But do you think the same as me? Moving on implies leaving something behind. And we can’t leave this behind. We don’t want to.
So instead of moving on, I want to share with you a different possibility: moving with.
Moving with your grief means you don’t try to outrun it. You don’t bury it or numb it or pretend it’s smaller than it is.
You let it walk beside you. You make room for it in your life.
It’s about building a life alongside loss. A life informed by beauty and grace as much as by devastation.
And that takes time. More time than anyone wants it to take.
Your Grief Is Love That Has Nowhere to Go
Here’s something I need you to know: Your grief is a form of love.
The unexpected death of a loved one leaves you with all this love that has nowhere to go. It’s love for the person you lost. Love for the life you thought you’d have together. Love for the parts of yourself that you can’t access anymore because they were only alive when that person was near.
Right now, being brave doesn’t mean being strong. It doesn’t mean holding it together or putting on a brave face.
Being brave means staying present to your own heart when that heart is shattered.
It means feeling everything you’re feeling, even when you have to bear the unbearable.
And that, my friend, is the most courageous thing you can do.
But Please Be Kind to Yourself
Kindness to self is the most necessary and, most difficult, medicine.
When you’re grieving, everything feels like too much. Getting out of bed is too much. Taking a shower is too much. Answering a text message is too much.
And that’s OK.
Right now, survival is enough.
You don’t have to be productive. You don’t have to be “doing better”. You don’t have to meet anyone’s expectations – including your own.
If you need to lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling, do that. If you need to cancel plans, cancel them. If you need to turn off your phone and disappear for a while, disappear.
You are allowed to do whatever you need to do to get through this moment.
Yes, It’s OK to Disappear for a While
And it’s also OK to avoid people.
I know that sounds counterintuitive. Everyone says you need support. You need community. You need to talk about it.
And maybe, eventually, that will be true.
But right now, if what you need is anonymity, if you need to walk into a coffee shop where no one knows you, where no one will ask how you’re doing, do that.
You need to breathe. And sometimes, you can only breathe when no one is watching.
Give Your Pain to What You Create
If you’re a writer, a painter, a musician – someone who has always turned to creativity to process the world – you might find that right now, you can’t.
The words won’t come. The colours feel meaningless. The notes sound hollow.
And that’s OK too.
But if you can, even in the smallest way, try to let yourself create.
Not to make something beautiful. Not to produce anything meaningful.
Just to witness.
The page or the canvas or something else, they are always a willing companion. It doesn’t need you to be eloquent or profound. It will hold whatever you give it.
And sometimes, when the world doesn’t want to hear your pain, the blank page will.
You Are Doing What You Can, and I Bow to You
I want to tell you something, and I need you to believe it, even if you can’t feel it yet.
Life can be, and even likely will be, beautiful again.
Not in the same way. Not with the same people. Not with the same innocence you had before this loss.
But beautiful nonetheless.
There will be mornings when the light hits the trees just right. There will be songs that move you. There will be moments of unexpected joy that catch you off guard.
And when those moments come, you don’t have to feel guilty. You don’t have to apologise for still being alive.
You can let yourself feel them. You can let yourself be grateful, even while you grieve.
But there’s no rush to get there. No timeline you have to follow.
For now, it’s enough to simply survive. To make it through this day. This hour. This breath.
And if that’s all you can do right now, then you’re doing enough.
You are enough.
And you are not alone.
Jasmine.
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