Growing Around What You’ve Lost

Grief (noun):
Deep sorrow, usually caused by a loss or death.

…but what counts as a loss or death?
A teacher who leaves your school mid-year.
A friend you’ve grown apart from.
A boyfriend who breaks up with you.
The loss of a beloved pet.

Grief is sadness about an ending….with someone or something you had a deep connection to. Sometimes that ending comes from death, but it doesn’t always have to.

One of my students once came to me because she was struggling to adjust to a new school. She had been so excited to start. She loved her teachers, made friends easily, and was joining new clubs.

But she wasn’t happy.
She cried often.
She had little motivation to get up in the morning.
She couldn’t sleep well and felt generally depressed.

When we began talking through her feelings, it became clear how much she loved her old school. She had been there since kindergarten (she was now starting high school!). She could name her favorite teachers and recall countless memories with her classmates. She had so many happy moments there…

…and she missed it.

One day she told me she felt “a hole” inside….a weird ache in her heart when she thought about her old school. I explained that what she was describing was grief - that physical, emotional heaviness that comes when we lose something meaningful.

We often think grief only happens when someone dies, but really, it’s what happens when something we care about changes or disappears. That’s exactly what was happening to her. And what she was feeling was totally normal!

That’s the sneaky thing about grief….it can show up when your best friend starts hanging out with someone new, when your parents separate, when your team doesn’t make it to finals, or when you move schools and feel like you’ve left your old self behind.

Grief is that empty space where something meaningful used to be.

My student told me she felt silly for being sad about “little things” like leaving her favorite school. But that’s the other thing about grief….it doesn’t measure size. It measures connection.

If it mattered to you, the grief is real.

She also shared that she sometimes felt guilty about having fun at her new school, or angry at her classmates for being so different from her old ones. Sometimes she even forgot where she was. She’d dream of being back in her familiar classrooms.

Grief not only shows up at unexpected times, it also brings up unexpected emotions like anger, denial, sadness, and guilt. The good news? All of it is normal and part of the healing process. When you’re grieving, it’s okay to be all over the place emotionally. Healing can be messy.

Because healing doesn’t happen in a straight line.

So how do we, especially teens, work through the emotions that come with loss? How do we begin to heal?

First, recognize and name what you’ve lost and how you feel about it. Write it down in a journal. Or, if you can, talk to someone you trust. Saying it out loud helps your brain process what happened. Grief gets lighter when it’s shared with a parent, a friend, or a counselor.

Then, let yourself feel it. The sadness, anger, confusion, even the denial - all of it. Cry if you need to. Run. Draw. Write. Move. Express what’s inside. When we suppress emotions, they don’t disappear, they just get heavier.

Have you ever wondered why there are so many rituals around death….wakes, funerals, memorials, flowers, readings? They help people say goodbye. You can do the same for any kind of loss. Write a goodbye letter. Plant something. Create art that honors what you miss.

Humans don’t “get over” grief and that’s okay. That’s one of the biggest misconceptions about healing. You don’t move on; you move forward. You don’t forget what you’ve lost; you grow around it.

And with that growth comes strength.

My student did exactly the right thing by talking about her grief over leaving her beloved school. I gave her space to cry and share her feelings. Together, we made a collage of pictures from her nine years there….a celebration of memories she could look back on with love. She still keeps it hanging in her room.

Now, she’s thriving at her new school - making new friends, new memories, and enjoying this next chapter of her life.

It’s important to remember this: every time we lose something meaningful, we learn something about love. We learn how deeply we can care, how much things matter, and how strong our hearts really are.

Grief isn’t just about endings….it’s about beginnings, too. The new version of you that emerges after loss might be softer, wiser, and more compassionate.

And that’s something worth holding on to!