how do you mourn someone who is still alive?

There’s a strange kind of grief that doesn’t get talked about enough. The kind that doesn’t come with funerals or all black and white clothes or people handing you tissues. There’s no designated time off for it. No collective silence to honor it. It just exists quietly, privately, sometimes even shamefully — in your day-to-day life.

It’s the grief of losing someone who is still alive.

You don’t lose them to death. You lose them to distance. To change. To silence. To decisions that couldn’t be undone. Sometimes you don’t even fully lose them. They’re still there, technically, but not in the same way. Not in the way that once made you feel safe, loved, understood or connected.

This kind of mourning is confusing. You can’t explain it easily to other people. They will ask, “What happened?” and all you will have to offer is a shrug and the ache of a thousand unsaid things. Because nothing happened. And everything happened. All at once.

Sometimes it’s a friend. Sometimes it’s someone you loved deeply. Sometimes it’s a parent, a sibling, a version of someone who once made your world feel intact. And you realise, over time or all at once, that they’re no longer who they used to be. Or maybe they still are, but not for you. Not anymore.

You find yourself mourning for them in quiet ways. You replay old memories like familiar songs — the kind you know every beat of, even if they hurt now. You remember the way they used to laugh or text you first, or look at you like you were the only person in the room. And now? Now, they look through you. Now, they reply late. Now, they’re more of a timeline update than a presence.

You think of them in your small moments. When you’re walking alone. When a song comes on. When you pass by a place you both swore you’d return to. You might say something in your head like you’re still speaking to them, but you never say it. You carry the words anyway.

It’s weird to grieve someone who’s breathing. Who might be happy. Who might even be better off. And yet, a part of you aches like you’ve buried something, a closeness, a dream, a shared version of the future. You didn’t plan to say goodbye, but you’re stuck living in the after.

You scroll past their name. You don’t reach out. Not because you don’t want to. But because you know the version of them you miss isn’t the one you’d reach. And you can’t go through the pain of being reminded of that again.

And no one tells you how often you’ll have to let them go. Not just once, but over and over. Each time you’re tempted to hold on. Each time you hear their name. Each time you wonder if they think of you too. Each time you see something that reminds you of what was and what will never be again.

It’s a cycle. Remembering, missing, holding back and finally letting go. And slowly, that pain becomes a part of you. Not loud. Not overwhelming. Just there. Like a song playing in the next room that never fully stops.

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And eventually, you start to heal. Not because it stops hurting. But because you learn how to live with it. You find yourself smiling again. You find comfort in the people who stayed. In the spaces that feel safe. You talk about them less. You think about them less.

But sometimes, just sometimes, late at night or while waiting for your coffee or walking past something familiar, you feel it again. The grief. Soft, but sharp. A reminder that you once loved someone deeply, and then had to let them go, even though they never really left.

So.. how do you mourn someone who is still alive?

Quietly. Repeatedly. And in your own time. You accept that some goodbyes never get spoken out loud.

You let them go — one memory at a time.