coping with grief and regret when you didn’t get to say goodbye

I didn’t get to say goodbye to my brother.

He died on January 17, 2021. I remember getting the dreaded ‘it’s an emergency’ text from my sister saying that Greg had been hurt and was in a coma. I searched my mind for the last time I’d talked to him and realized that we’d exchanged nothing more than Facebook messages since 2018. Panic set in. Wait. He can’t go. Not yet, not like this. He’s a fighter. He’ll make it. How could I have let this much time pass by? 

Greg and I were born 17 years apart. We didn’t grow up together and I adored him but didn’t know him that well as a child. By the time I was old enough to have memories, he was away in the Air Force, then he was in culinary school, then he was here and there, out in the world living his life. We had different moms and my mother did not make my brother (or my sister) feel welcome in our home, so I didn’t get to truly know him as a person until I was an adult. 

Our Nana’s house was the home base of my Dad’s side of the family, and that is where my brother and I got to know each other later. Every time we saw each other we picked up where we left off and learned more about each other. Our family tradition when everyone was home visiting was to eat dinner together, then curl up and watch movies and have dessert. I can still hear the voices—echoes of storytelling, teasing, laughing, and arguing. It felt like those times would never end. But in the past three years, three people from those family gatherings at Nana’s have passed away—my dad, my aunt, and now my brother. Nana’s house has been sold. Time moves on and I look through photos and cling to memories wondering if I appreciated enough, if I was present enough, did I realize how precious and temporary those moments were?

I didn’t get to say goodbye to my brother because I didn’t say hello often enough.

I didn’t hear his voice or see his face for over a year before he passed. So I am not only mourning his death, I am mourning the time I didn’t spend with him when he was alive. I wish I’d reminded him more often that he was important to me. I wish I’d asked more questions about his story, and that I’d made more space in my life for him. He faced more than his share of adversity, and I never told him that I was proud of him or how much I admired his generous spirit and resilience through it all.

He didn’t get to leave me with any parting words, but his death has created an awakening in me, a deeper commitment to honor what is sacred in my life, now with the earned wisdom of someone who has had to learn the hard way. I will try not to dwell for too long on the time we did not get or the regrets that I have because I know our time together has not ended, it has only transformed. 

The best ways I know to honor my brother are to continue to learn from our relationship even though he’s physically gone; to talk about him and what I learned from his life, his love and his death; and to show up in the relationships that I value with more intention and appreciation. 

This life is about loving, discovering, learning, and letting go.

It’s about growth and often grief can be an unwanted catalyst for growth. I’ve been reading A Grief Observed, where C.S. Lewis documents the emotional journey of his wife’s illness and death. He says, “Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.” 

In The Year of Magical Thinking, which I read when my Dad passed away, Joan Didion says, “Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life. Virtually everyone who has ever experienced grief mentions this phenomenon of waves.”

If you’re living in the same world as me in 2021, you are grieving in some way too. You are experiencing winding valleys, waves that keep coming, and new landscapes that appear around each bend. The longer we live and the more we experience, the more we must learn how to navigate the dynamics of grief and loss.

six ways to process grief through writing

I’ve always used expressive writing as a way to make sense of my inner world and the world around me. Writing can help us ride the waves that are sure to come as we process grief and make conscious choices about how to ride those waves. The following writing exercises can help:

1—Freestyle write. Do a daily brain and heart dump to get all your emotions out and name your feelings. Be curious and open to how you feel, not judgmental. It doesn’t make the pain go away, but it calms your mind, releases tension and supports the healing process. 

2—Tell yourself the story.  What story do you need to tell? You can write about what life was like before the loss, during or after. You can write stories to refresh your memories. If it still hurts too much to write in the first person, you can write a fictional story to channel your emotions through characters. Creativity has the power to transform pain into inspiration.

3—Write a letter. What are the words that you didn’t get to say? By writing a letter to the one(s) you lost, you get to safely express yourself and continue your relationship with that person in a new and evolving way.

4—Write down your prayers. What do you need to say to God, to Life, to the Universe, to whatever you call your Creator or Higher Power? When you’re hurting and maybe even disillusioned, sometimes it’s easier to write it down than to say it aloud. 

5—Writing prompts. As part of my #30Layers30Days series, every month I post daily writing prompts in the form of short phrases that can be used to inspire journal entries, poems, short stories, blog posts or whatever you like. I also recommend Grief Day by Day for writing prompts and creative exercises to cope with grief.

6 —Keep a list of lessons and silver linings. As part of your healing journey, keep a log of insights, lessons, positive aspects, and reasons for gratitude that are being revealed to you, even as you struggle.  Balance out the pain by acknowledging the love and joy that remains.

what does grief need to say through you?

It was through freestyle writing (#1) that I admitted the guilt and regret that I was feeling over the loss of my brother and the need to forgive myself. And it was through the practice of listing lessons learned (#6) that I began to recognize the beginnings of a new story, one where I grow from this loss and allow the pain to fuel more conscious choices.

Remember that grief is not here to destroy you, it is here to awaken you. Like any other emotion, it comes seeking expression. When we suppress it by ignoring it or compound it by punishing ourselves, we force grief to stay put instead of letting it move through us. When we meet grief with reverence, we can learn to ride the waves, and surrender to deep appreciation, wonder and joy at the miracle of life.