The grief no one talks about — mourning a living child

Emotional Wellbeing
1

Seven years. Seven years since I last held my daughter, since I heard her laugh at one of my terrible dad jokes, since she fell asleep against my shoulder during our Saturday film marathons.

People ask how I’m doing and I never know what to say. How do you explain that you’re grieving someone who’s still breathing? That every day you wake up knowing your child is out there — maybe ten miles away, maybe getting ready for school right now — but she might as well be on another planet.

There’s no funeral for this loss. No flowers, no casseroles showing up at your door. No one says “I’m sorry for your loss” because technically, what have I lost? She’s still alive, they’ll say. As if that makes it easier. As if the not-knowing isn’t worse than knowing.

I write her letters. Started the week after our last court date collapsed into nothing. Dear Sophie, I write, and then I sit there staring at the blank page because what do you say to a ghost? How do you tell someone who’s been taught to hate you that you still love them fiercely, completely, without condition?

The grief counsellor I saw last year — nice woman, meant well — kept talking about “closure” and “moving forward.” But this isn’t that kind of loss. This is loving someone who’s been erased from your life while they continue living theirs. It’s checking her school’s website to see if there are any photos from sports day. It’s avoiding the shops near her mum’s house because what if I see her and she looks through me like I don’t exist?

Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier if she had died. At least then people would understand the weight I carry. At least then I could grieve properly, publicly, without people suggesting I “just move on” or “start fresh.”

But she’s not dead. She’s fourteen now. She’s learning to drive soon, probably. And I’m here, loving her from a distance, mourning a relationship that was murdered while she was still breathing.

That’s the grief no one talks about. The impossible, endless ache of losing someone who’s still very much alive.

2

God, this hit me so hard I had to put my phone down for a minute. Four years here and you’ve just put into words what I couldn’t.

3

I’ve been sitting with this for ten minutes, not knowing how to respond because you’ve just put words to something I couldn’t name. The grief counsellor thing — God, yes. Mine kept saying I needed to “process the loss” and I wanted to scream that you can’t process something that’s still happening.

I write letters too. Three years of them now, all unsent, all saying the things I’d tell my kids if they could hear me. Sometimes I catch myself buying birthday cards in the shop and then standing there in the aisle remembering there’s nowhere to send them. It’s this constant low-level heartbreak that most people just don’t get.

You’re right about the funeral thing. There’s no social script for this, no timeline for when you’re supposed to be “over it.” People expect you to rebuild and move forward but how do you move forward from loving your child? The love doesn’t just stop because they’re not here.

4

This is exactly it. The grief counsellor thing especially — I had one tell me to “focus on other relationships” as if you can just replace grandchildren like broken crockery.

Five years since I’ve seen my two. They’d be 12 and 15 now. I keep birthday cards in a drawer I’ll never send.

The living bereavement is the cruelest kind.

5

God, this is so familiar it hurts. The “technically what have I lost” line — I’ve had that exact conversation with people who just don’t get it.

I write letters to my twins too. Four years of letters they’ll never see. The grief counsellors mean well but they really don’t understand this particular hell, do they.

6

This hits so close to home. The letters especially — I’ve written hundreds to my boys over the years, most never sent. Started when they were 12 and 14, kept going through the silence.

Six years I carried that same impossible grief. People would say “at least you know they’re safe” like that was supposed to comfort me. Safe, yes, but believing I was the enemy. The Raad voor de Kinderbescherming here couldn’t understand it either — how do you explain to social workers that your children are alive but lost to you?

My eldest called two months ago. Just like that, out of nowhere. His voice deeper now, careful but curious. We’re taking tiny steps, meeting for coffee sometimes. I still write the letters though — I think I always will. They helped me remember who I was as his father when the world forgot.

The grief you’re describing, it’s real and it’s devastating. And somehow we learn to carry it while staying ready for the day they might reach back.