Ambiguous loss is a term many people do not talk about, yet so many of us live through it. It is the grief of losing someone who is still physically alive but emotionally and mentally no longer present in your life. You are forced to mourn someone who still exists.
It is said to be one of the hardest kinds of grief because there is no closure. No funeral. No final goodbye. Just silence. You are grieving someone who is still walking this earth.
While I have been fortunate enough not to experience the pain of losing someone to death, and I would never claim that ambiguous loss is harder than that kind of loss, I can say that it is not easy to carry.
If you have been keeping up with my blogs, you know that 2025 was not kind to me. In the span of just three months, I experienced three separate losses in a very short amount of time. It has been hard, and I still have days where I feel the weight of it all.
One day, my friend and I were laughing on the phone. The next day, she became distant. I reached out, but eventually I had to accept that I would never get an explanation. Just silence. I was forced to grieve a friendship that was still alive but already gone.
While I was still mourning that, I noticed another friendship had become stagnant. There was no growth, no depth. I had outgrown that version of myself. I reached a crossroads. Stay comfortable, or grow into who God was calling me to be. I chose growth, and with that choice came another loss.
And then there was the relationship.
I stayed because I created a fantasy of what life could be. I settled for the bare minimum because I believed that once we got to the good part, it would not matter. But it did. I allowed myself to hurt because I wanted something God never intended for me to have.
By the end of 2025, I found myself grieving. One loss without answers. One friendship I had outgrown. And one fantasy of a man who was never going to become what I needed him to be.
Three losses. No closure. Just learning how to let go of people who are still alive.
That is ambiguous loss.
But in all of this, I learned something about myself. I learned that letting go does not mean I failed. It means I finally chose myself. It means I trusted God enough to believe that what left my life was making room for what is meant to stay. Healing does not always come with answers. Sometimes it comes with acceptance. And even though some days still hurt, I now understand that every ending I grieved was also a beginning I could not yet see.
Love ya, BYE!
Tee Talk 