To Those Holding Complicated Grief

Grief is never simple, yet some grief feels especially hard to name. The kind that doesn’t follow a clear before and after. The kind that exists in contradictions. The kind that feels too tangled, too messy, too unfinished.

Maybe the person you lost wasn’t kind to you. Maybe the job didn’t align, yet you still miss the warmth of your colleagues. Maybe there were words left unsaid, not just “I miss you,” but “you hurt me.” Or “I wish we had a better relationship.” Maybe you're grieving someone who is still alive but no longer in your life, even though you know it wasn’t meant to be. Or maybe you’re mourning a version of the past (damn you, COVID) that never got to exist. Complicated grief is exactly that, so effin complicated. It doesn’t fit neatly into stages. It doesn’t come with closure. And often times, it doesn’t make sense.

That’s what makes it so hard to talk about. How do you reconcile the love and the loss, the guilt and the longing? How do you explain grief that holds multitudes: sadness, guilt, anger, relief, nostalgia, even moments of unexpected joy? It's the kind of grief that lingers in the quietest corners of your mind, long after the world expects you to have moved on.

But here’s what I wish we all were told more: Our grief counts. Even when it’s tangled, even when it doesn’t fit into a single feeling, and mostly when we don’t know how to explain it to others. We don’t need a “good enough” reason to feel the way we do.

Loss, in all its complexity, still deserves to be honored! 💚