There’s no ceremony for losing a friend – no cards, no time off, often not even a clear ending. Why that ambiguity is its own kind of hard, and what helps.

A terminal diagnosis doesn’t just deliver news about the future – it starts the grieving early, for someone who’s still here, over a loss that hasn’t happened yet.

Most grief starts after something ends. This kind starts while it’s still happening – dementia, addiction, an estrangement that never quite gets a clean, final ending.

Grief doesn’t move in one steady line. It comes in waves – manageable for months, then suddenly raw again, without meaning any of the earlier progress was wasted.

Losing a parent is the loss almost everyone expects to face – which is why it’s so often underestimated, and deserves its own space to be felt fully.