Estrangement Grief part 2

Some losses don’t come with funerals, casseroles, or even permission to talk about them. 

In this episode we discuss how when a relationship ends but the person is still alive, the grief can feel confusing, isolating, and nonstop, especially when the outside world acts like nothing happened.

 The pain is real, heavy, and constant as the year moves through holidays, birthdays, and even just daily activities. 

I share a story that has stayed with me for years: a woman  whose son died, and afterward her daughter-in-law moved away with the children and cut contact. She didn’t even know where her grandchildren were. 

I also reflect on my own experience as a grandmother with grandkids who live out of state, and how distance alone can create a steady ache as children grow up in the gaps between visits. 

These stories highlight why family estrangement and relationship loss can be a form of complicated grief with triggers built into the calendar.

We also talk about another kind of estrangement, when someone pulls away because connection hurts too much, like an aunt who can’t be around her niece because she looks like the sister she lost. 

The result is still the same: people left without support, left without words, left alone with grief and sorrow. 

My purpose is simple: to help us get more comfortable talking about death and grief and to see the “death” of dreams, hopes, and relationships, so we can support each other better.

If this resonates, listen, share it with someone who might feel unseen, and leave a review so more people can find support around estrangement grief, grief support, and emotional healing. You never know what it could mean to someone that you thought of them and shared this episode. 

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Transcript

Welcome And Quick Recap

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Hello and welcome to this podcast. Thank you for joining me in this episode. Now I want to continue on from what we discussed last week. In case you need a reminder or you did not hear last week's episode yet, we talked about grief that comes from estrangement, from relationships that either we or they decide are no longer going to be active, and we just no longer speak, we no longer see each other. And so we talked about the grief in that and being allowed to grieve, that that's that's a grief that no one brings a casserole for, and no one really acknowledges in a way that it's a real grief because oh, they're still living, right? So I want to continue that thought of estrangement grief. I can still remember when a woman shared with me

A Grandmother Cut Off After Loss

SPEAKER_00 1:46

she was a grandmother and she was a mother, and when her son died, her daughter-in-law moved herself and the children out of state, and has totally not stayed connected to this woman, to her mother-in-law, to the grandmother of her children. So this woman was sharing with me how hard that was, how she was grieving. And this was this was even before I was in in grief work. She was sharing this with me. And I could tell it was not something that she shared with very many people, but she was sharing it with me how hard that was. She didn't even know where her grandchildren were. Were were they even alive? Where were they? Now I know this is an extreme case, because this is not exactly what I mean by estrangement. But there's so much wrapped up in the estrangement grief. It's it's very complicated because like any grief, it's it's unique, it's different to each of us. But this poor woman she had Christmases, you know, the holidays. She had birthdays. So she was constantly grieving throughout the year, each year, as her grandbabies were growing up. Now I'm a grandmother, and I have grandchildren that live out of state, and I only see them once or twice a year, and that is extremely hard because my grandbabies are growing up without me. I'm not in their everyday life. And I don't mean seeing them every day and being with them every day, but I just mean just in the just in life, they're not really growing up with me. And it's a big difference. I have grandchildren that live near me, and I see them every month, every week. And we do normal things with them. We go to the parade, we go get ice cream, they come over and play, they look forward to coming to May May

Milestones That Keep Reopening Grief

SPEAKER_00 4:11

and Papa's house. So there's a difference. Because when I see the out of state grandchildren, like I said, it's it could be six months, it could be a year, and so much goes on in the life of a child in that time frame. And I'm not a part of it. So I can't even imagine what this woman was going through. Constantly seeing other women with their grandchildren, having to listen to other grandmothers talk about their grandchildren, seeing them, hearing them. I just can't imagine. And every milestone. Wondering now, is the baby walking? Oh, surely the baby's talking. Oh, the little one is no longer little. She's going to preschool, she's going to kindergarten, she's graduating. Oh, she turned 16. She's learning to drive. I mean, there's so many milestones, so many times in a year that this woman is suffering. I also know of a friend shared with me how her mother died when she was young. And her mother had a sister. She has an aunt. But the aunt is estranged

When Distance Still Feels Like Loss

SPEAKER_00 5:31

from her. She has decided she cannot be with her niece because of the pain. Her niece looks so much like her sister. And the niece, my friend, you know, she grieves. I mean, she understands in a way, but yet in another way she doesn't. And she's all alone. Instead of having a relationship with her aunt, who could have stepped in and been a mom to her. This woman grew up without a mom. And she has no, she has no grandmother, you know, in her life. She has no aunt in her life. She has no mom in her life. And so those are estrangements. But what I talked about last week was the estrangement where you actually choose, which either you choose or somebody else chooses, right? It's all estrangement. Whether something happened and there's miscommunication and there's pain and you're protecting yourself and having nothing to do with your loved one, whether it's your parents or your children, or whether they did it to you, whether your parents or your children. That's kind of what I had in mind last week. And I just wanted to expand on that, on how important it is for us to talk about, to be comfortable

Another Kind Of Family Estrangement

SPEAKER_00 6:51

talking about grief. Grief of all kinds. Because it's a death of something. It's either a death of a person or it's a death of a relationship, a death of a dream, death of a hope. And we need to get comfortable talking about death and about grief so that we can feel supported, so that we can be supported and so that we can support others. Because there's so many of us that are walking around with grief. And we may look happy, we may look like we're functioning, we may be able to do our jobs and to live our lives, but we're hurting. And then some days that hurt can get so heavy and we are so alone. We are so alone and we have no one to talk to. So we just sit there in the pain and in the grief and in the sorrow. Because our society, as people, we are not comfortable talking about grief and death. And that's why I'm on this mission to get us comfortable. It is hard. Yes, it's hard, but isn't it harder to sit alone on those days when it's just everything comes crashing down and it's heavy? I mean, yes, there are times you do want to be alone, but there are times when, oh, if somebody would just notice, if somebody would just care enough to notice, it would mean so much. So I want to encourage you to be gentle with yourself

Why We Must Talk About Grief

SPEAKER_00 8:21

and to be extremely kind to other people because we never know what a smile or a word or an action can do. And I think we're going to be spending the next several episodes on this estrangement grief. And we'll name it. We'll get the official name out there because I know some of you feel better if you have a tag for it. But just know that I see you. I'm here for you. If you're going through some kind of estrangement right now in your life, I see you. This is the caring death, doula, and I am here for you.