Grief is not a single
moment. It isn’t just the final breath, the last phone call, or the quiet
closing of a door. Grief can begin long before goodbye, long before we
even have the words to name it.
For many, grief arrives as a slow
unravelling, not a sudden strike, but a quiet, physical breaking that aches
through the body long before the heart understands why. It comes in waves that
feel confusing and lonely, the shock that something is changing, the denial
that whispers maybe it’s not as bad as it seems, the anger that flares
at the unfairness of it all, the bargaining with life, doctors, hope itself.
Then come the heavy days of depression, the weary acceptance, and eventually,
gently the integration, when grief becomes something we fold into our lives
instead of fight against. These seven stages don’t follow rules or order. They
loop, repeat, collide. Grief is messy because love is messy.
And nowhere is this more true
than in dementia.
The grief of losing someone
who is still here
When someone we love is living
with a Dementia, we lose them in pieces.
The person we once knew, their stories, their jokes, the way they said our
name, slowly fades away. You find yourself grieving a laugh that no longer
comes, a conversation that now circles endlessly, the spark in their eyes that
used to recognise you in an instant.
It is a grief that feels almost
invisible, because the world often expects grief to follow death. But here,
death has not come, only the quiet, painful vanishing of the person you
remember. And that raises a question many carry in their hearts - is this grief
any different from the grief that follows death?
In truth, it isn’t.
The pain is real. The loss is
real. The longing is real.
It is grief in slow motion, stretched across months or years, demanding a
different kind of strength, the strength to keep loving with your whole heart,
even as the person you love fades before your eyes.
As National Grief Awareness Week approaches, it encourages us to recognise this quieter
grief for what it is. The theme “Growing with Grief” reminds us that grief
doesn’t fade just because someone is still here. Instead, we grow around the
ache. We adjust our hearts, reshape our routines, and learn to love the person
in front of us while mourning the person they used to be.
In the everyday moments, grief
lies quietly
In social care, grief isn’t rare
or loud, it lives quietly in the day-to-day. It appears in the trembling smile
of a son who repeats himself again and again, trying to hold back the grief of
knowing his Dad no longer remembers the world they once shared. In the
soft sigh of a wife watching the person she married drift further into a world
she cannot enter. In the long pause before a carer answers the same
question again, and again, and again - with kindness, because they know it
isn’t really the question that matters, but the reassurance behind it.
These moments rarely make
headlines, but they shape the days of those who love, and those who care.
Within this grief, something else
grows too. A tenderness that wasn’t there before. A fierce patience. A
love that holds on, even through the cracks and the hurt.
Families learn to hold on to the
moments that are still left - a warm hand held tightly, a flicker of
recognition, a shared song that somehow still reaches the heart. They are small
moments, but they become everything.
You don’t have to carry grief
alone
National Grief Awareness Week is
a reminder that grief isn’t something we should carry alone. When we talk about
it, it becomes a little lighter. Stories connect us. Sharing brings comfort.
The Good Grief Trust continues to
shine a light for anyone walking through loss, whether that loss is sudden,
expected, complicated, or stretched across years of dementia. No one
should feel isolated in their grief, especially when their heart feels fragile.
This week is a chance to reach
out, to talk, to really listen, and to give your grief some room, not to fix it
or make it disappear, but to let a little hope grow alongside it.
National Grief Awareness Week runs from 2nd–8th December 2025
