There was no funeral for the life I thought I’d have.
No flowers on the table, no black clothes and no carefully chosen words. Just a doctor’s appointment that didn’t go the way I hoped. A message that never came. A decision I didn’t want to make. A door that closed so softly that, for a while, I kept waiting to hear it open again.
When we talk about grief, people usually picture death. A person you can name or a date you can circle on a calendar. But some of the heaviest losses I have carried never had a name. They were timelines and maybes, future birthdays that will never be and a version of myself I was sure I’d become.
Maybe you know that kind of loss, too.
The test result. The job that slipped away. The relationship that ended quietly instead of dramatically. The move that left you in a new place where nobody knows who you used to be.
From the outside, it looks like you are just making changes or moving on. People say, “You’re strong,” “You’ll find something better,” “Everything happens for a reason,” as if that settles it. Inside, though, there’s a whole life you are still saying goodbye to and no one brings casseroles for that.
I remember trying to explain this once and stumbling over my own words. It felt strange to grieve something that never fully existed, to be heartbroken over a future tense. I kept thinking, “Maybe I’m being dramatic. Maybe this isn’t real grief.”
But the ache was real. The dreams were real. The person I thought I’d be was real, even if only to me.
As I was decluttering my wardrobe, I came across a cute tiny t-shirt I had bought many years ago, knowing that one day that brown tiny t-shirt would be worn by my baby. Then I thought of one doctor telling me that my chances of having a child were 50/50. “So you better do something very very soon,” she said. My heart was silent, but my mind was saying, yeah, very very soon is not happening soon. I had just come out of a relationship that had moved on without my knowledge.
The second doctor’s opinion reduced my chances from 50/50 to a slim chance. This time no figures, just slim. It must have been very slim for her not to quantify it with a number. Then her next question threw me out of my thoughts. She asked, “Are you sure you really want to have a child?”
That question was enough to make me put the cute tiny brown t-shirt in the donation basket, for someone else’s baby to wear, one that will never be mine. I have made peace with that life that didn’t happen.
If you are mourning a version of your life that didn’t happen, a family you hoped for, a body you used to have, a home you had to leave, a love that couldn’t stay, your grief is not imaginary. It may be invisible to others, but it is not invisible to your own heart.
You are allowed to miss what never fully arrived. You are allowed to take your time learning how to live in this life when you were so sure you were meant for another one.
With gentleness,
Ruthie
Next Thursday, a poem. I am going to play hide-and-seek with my little nephews and nieces. They fill the part of my little brown t-shirt.