Learning to Love Someone in Their Absence
Dedicated to everyone who has lost someone they love.
By Naazi Morad
There are some losses that change you so deeply that the person you were before the loss does not quite return. Not because you are broken, and not because you are weak, but because when we lose someone we deeply love, we lose more than a person. We lose their voice, their presence, their routines, the conversations we expected to have, the future moments we imagined, and sometimes even a part of how we understood ourselves.
Grief asks us to learn how to live in a world that now looks different.
There is a particular psychological experience when someone has been seriously ill for some time. The doctors may eventually say, “There is nothing more we can do.” Somewhere inside us, we may begin to understand that death is approaching. We may not be ready, and perhaps we can never truly be ready, but the mind sometimes begins a quiet process of preparing for the possibility that the person may not be with us much longer. We may cry before they die. We may have difficult conversations. We may hold their hand. We may say things we have been afraid to say. We may begin anticipating the unbearable. This does not mean the eventual death will hurt less; it means the mind has had some opportunity to begin processing the possibility of the loss.
And then there is sudden loss. A car accident. Someone dying unexpectedly in their sleep. A sudden medical event. A phone call you never expected to receive. There is no psychological preparation for that moment. One minute the person exists in your world, and suddenly they are gone. The mind may struggle to comprehend what has happened. The body may go into shock. You may feel numb, cry uncontrollably, feel unable to breathe, become restless or unable to sleep, or keep expecting the person to walk through the door. Then, for a moment, reality returns: “My mother died.” “My father died.” “My husband died.” And the pain comes rushing back. A sudden bereavement can be profoundly shocking and can initially feel traumatic, although grief itself is not automatically PTSD. PTSD is a specific clinical disorder with specific diagnostic criteria.
One of the most painful parts of sudden death can be the feeling of not having had the opportunity to say goodbye.
The mind may begin searching for answers: How could this have happened? What if I had called? What if I had been there? What if something had been done differently?
Sometimes the mind is not really searching for a logical answer. It is trying to find a way to remain connected to someone who is no longer physically here. It is trying to understand an impossible reality.
The morning after a death can be unbearable. For a few seconds, you may forget. Then reality returns. They are gone. You may go through your day and suddenly remember again. You may see something that belonged to them, hear a song, smell a familiar fragrance, see their photograph, or walk past a place you visited together, and the grief returns. This does not necessarily mean that you are going backwards. Your mind is gradually learning a new reality: this person is no longer physically here.
Grief is not processed once. It is integrated gradually.
And then comes the funeral. The funeral can be another profound psychological moment. Until then, part of the mind may still be struggling to comprehend the death. Then the deceased is taken for burial, and something inside you understands: this person is no longer physically coming back. For some people, this brings a painful form of closure—not closure meaning “I am okay now,” but closure meaning “I understand that this has happened.” And that understanding can hurt terribly.
How many times have grieving people heard, “You will be okay,” “Time heals everything,” “You need to be strong,” “Your loved one is in a better place,” or “They would want you to be happy”? These words are usually spoken with love.
But sometimes a grieving person does not need an explanation. They do not need to be fixed. They do not need to be reminded that one day they will be okay.
Sometimes they simply need someone to sit beside them and say, “I am here. You don’t have to go through this moment alone.” If you have never experienced profound bereavement, you may not fully understand its weight, and that is okay. You do not have to understand someone’s pain completely to be present for them. Sometimes a hug says more than a hundred words.
Grief is something we sit with. We do not have to run from every painful emotion. We do not have to force ourselves to stop crying. We do not have to pretend that we are okay when we are not. Grief can feel physical. It can sit in your chest, tighten your throat, exhaust your body, disturb your sleep, affect your appetite and concentration, and make ordinary tasks feel enormous. Sometimes you may think, “I cannot do this.” But then you do something very small. You get up. You wash your face. You drink something warm. You pray. You breathe. You make it through the next hour, and then the next. That is not weakness. That is your mind and body learning how to survive an enormous change.
And if you keep crying, then cry. A tear is not evidence that you are failing to heal. Your tears may be an expression of attachment. They may say, “This person mattered. I loved them. I miss them. Their absence hurts because their presence meant something.” There is no prize for grieving quickly. There is no correct number of days you are allowed to mourn, and there is no deadline by which you must stop missing someone.
Healing does not necessarily mean forgetting. It does not mean that the person becomes unimportant. It does not mean that you stop loving them. It does not mean that birthdays, anniversaries, holidays or New Year suddenly feel exactly as they did before. They may never feel the same. The first birthday without them may hurt. The first Eid, Christmas, anniversary or family gathering may hurt. The anniversary of their death may bring emotions you thought you had already worked through. Sometimes, years later, something unexpected can bring the tears back. That does not mean you have failed. It means you remember.
There comes a point in grief when we slowly begin to understand that although we cannot have this person in the way we once did, we can continue loving them differently. Through memories. Through stories. Through photographs. Through the values they gave us. Through the lessons they taught us. Through the people they loved. Through prayer. Through the way we carry pieces of them forward. For those who hold spiritual beliefs, there can also be deep comfort in knowing that physical death does not necessarily represent the end of a person’s spiritual existence. The relationship changes. The form of connection changes. But love does not simply disappear because the person is no longer physically present. We learn to carry love from this world into another understanding of existence.
Perhaps you can gently ask yourself:
What am I missing most about this person? What did their presence give me? What did I learn from them? What would I want to say to them today? What memories bring me comfort, even while they make me cry? What part of them do I want to carry forward in my own life? And perhaps the hardest question of all: How can I learn to live again without believing that living means leaving them behind?
You do not have to become exactly who you were before the loss. Significant loss can change you. It can change your priorities, how you see time, how you love, and what matters to you. It can make you more aware that life is fragile. It can make ordinary moments more meaningful. You may eventually laugh again. You may enjoy a birthday again. You may make plans again. You may love again.
You may wake up one morning and realise that you went several hours without crying, and perhaps you feel guilty. Don’t. Being able to experience happiness again does not betray the person you lost. You are not choosing life instead of them. You are learning to carry their memory while continuing your life.
And if today all you can do is breathe, then breathe. If today you can pray, pray. If today you can get out of bed, wash your face and have something warm to drink, let that be enough for today. Grief is not a race. You do not have to rush your healing to make other people comfortable. You are allowed to miss them. You are allowed to have difficult days. You are allowed to laugh. You are allowed to live. You are allowed to love them and still continue living.
Because healing does not mean forgetting. Healing means learning how to live with the love, the memories and the loss until, slowly, the pain becomes less overwhelming and the love becomes easier to carry.
If you are grieving, you do not have to carry everything alone. Sometimes grief needs a safe place where you can speak about the person you lost, the anger, the guilt, the memories, the silence, the fear and the parts of yourself that have changed. Sometimes the most therapeutic thing we can do is simply sit with the grief rather than trying to make it disappear.
Your loved one mattered.
Your grief tells us that.
Go gently with yourself.
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