Dear Grief Guide, I Can't Move On From My Friend's Death

Hello and welcome to Dear Grief Guide,

A podcast where each week I answer one anonymous letter from a listener feeling lost,

Stuck,

Heartbroken,

Or overwhelmed in the midst of grief.

My name is Shelby Forsythia.

I'm a grief coach and author,

And I'm here to help you create a life you love from the life loss forced you to live.

Let's get to today's letter.

Dear Grief Guide,

I miss my friend Elle every single day.

We were friends for 15 years,

Met in college,

And we just clicked.

It was that special friendship where we didn't have to talk every day or week,

But we knew the other was a phone call away.

Even when Elle moved hours away and we only saw each other once a year,

Our friendship stayed strong.

Elle was that friend you don't always get in life.

She would do anything for me and I for her.

We would surprise each other with a visit to the other's town or a card in the mail.

We have seen all sides of each other.

She's even seen an ugly side of me that even my wife hasn't seen.

She is the person I call when something big happens,

Good or bad.

We never judged each other,

And we always supported the other through the good and bad.

I never took her for granted,

But I just expected 30 plus more years of friendship,

And now I feel alone.

I have a wife and a child.

I have other friends,

Even ones that get close to what Elle and I had,

But I still feel lost and scared at times.

What if something happens to my marriage or my child?

Who will I call?

Who will drop everything to come help me?

Elle was my safety net and I was hers,

And now I feel lost.

I don't know how to move on.

I desperately want another Elle in my life,

But it hurts to know it probably won't happen.

Not only is it hard to make friends in your late 30s,

But I do truly believe our friendship is a once-in-a-lifetime thing,

And not everyone gets that kind of friendship.

I love you,

Elle,

And I miss you every day.

I will try to make you proud in the profession we shared,

And I will try to always be the positive and welcoming person you were.

Signed,

Missing My Best Friend.

Hi there,

Missing.

I know this loss in some capacity.

I'll never talk to anyone who writes a letter in on this show and say I know exactly how you're feeling,

Because I don't think that that's possible.

Even though we experience so many of the same relationship losses as other people,

Even people we've never met before—letter writer,

You and I have never met—we both experience the devastating loss of a friend.

I cannot know entirely how you feel,

Because your relationship to Elle is different than my relationship to my friend,

Tammy.

What I can tell you is this.

Friendship loss,

And the loss,

The death of friends,

Is underrepresented,

Grossly underrepresented,

Especially in Westernized society,

Which at this time,

At the time of this recording,

Totally,

Totally,

Totally prioritizes and values family ties above chosen family,

Even and especially in our legal system.

You just take one quick look at who you are allowed to take time off to grieve in bereavement policy,

In what is written into law in this country,

And you see where our values lie.

You see it also in health care decisions at end of life,

Who you are allowed to make or appoint as somebody who makes significant and important medical decisions for you.

There's a quote that's tossed around a lot,

That blood is thicker than water,

But that's not the full thing.

I don't know if you've heard this before,

Missing,

But it's not blood is thicker than water.

It's the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,

I.

E.

The bonds that we choose for ourselves are stronger than the ones that are forged by biology that we are born into.

Our friendships,

The relationships that we mindfully choose to construct and participate in are often so much stronger and so much deeper than the relationships that we are assigned by default,

By the families and ancestry that we are born into.

I do not want to sugarcoat this for you,

So I'm not going to.

You are correct.

You will never have another friend like Al.

Just like I will never have another best friend like the friend that I had,

And when I really seriously think about that,

It hurts.

It wounds my soul on a cellular level to know that all I had of her is all I will ever have of her,

Because she died,

And I sense the same is true for you.

What I can tell you is this,

You will see glimpses of her in other people,

But also in yourself.

One of my favorite authors who I've mentioned on this show at least once if not twice before is Caleb Wilde,

And there's a chapter in his book Confessions of a Funeral Director where he talks about a child who dies and the people who come together to tell stories about her life,

And he writes this line or he expands on this metaphor that we are all mosaics of each other.

We can never bring back somebody we love who died,

But if we put enough of us in the same room together telling stories about them,

Sometimes we can see just a glimpse of who they were,

Even if these people never knew that person in life,

Even if they are new to our circle,

Even if you met them after Elle's death is what I'm saying.

So something that might be helpful to you as you think about strengthening friendships you already have that remind you of the one you had with Elle,

Or seeking out new friendships,

Is making a list of your favorite qualities about her.

I'm thinking things like loyalty,

Safety net,

Always available at a phone call,

Just having that sense of shared vulnerability and shared life together,

Maybe even sharing the same profession.

Coworkers can make great friends,

Especially when they start off as cooperative or collaborative coworkers.

At first,

We spend so much of our lives at work.

It might be valuable to you to find somebody else who was in a similar profession,

Who you can share your life with in the way that you did with Elle.

I want you to know that it's normal to feel lost and scared after the death of a friend.

It is unmooring in ways that other losses are not,

Especially because friends act as these sort of third-party witnesses to our lives.

They don't have a stake in the game from a familial or biological perspective,

But they have a stake in the game because they've chosen to.

Again,

It's that chosen family versus biological family thing.

They are in our lives because they choose to be,

And witnessing all of our milestones,

All of our character flaws and character gifts,

And everything in between,

It is truly a blessing to be witnessed in that way,

And to have lost her,

I hear you,

Is extremely disorienting and reminds you that,

Yeah,

You live in a world where anything can happen at any time to anyone.

And when it comes to feeling safe in the world again,

Because without the safety net,

I get the sense that you are in infinite free fall,

Perpetual falling.

Your focus in this season,

If I can give you a bit of homework,

Is to be getting grounded,

Seeing yourself as the one source of consistency in your life,

Because that you can guarantee.

Everyone else in your life,

Like you mentioned in your letter,

Your wife,

Your kids,

Maybe even your profession,

Your future friendships,

Even if they remind you of Elle,

Those things can fall away.

Those things can fade away.

But what is consistent through your entire life,

Through all of your losses,

Through all of your victories,

Through all of your successes,

Through all of your milestones,

That thing is you.

And so to ground with you at the center,

It's not selfish,

It's not self-absorbed,

It's not exclusive in any capacity.

It is very grounding to recognize I am the consistent thing in my life.

And coming at your future,

At your present and your future from that perspective is enormously helpful in reorienting to the world again after devastating loss.

Now I want to ask you some reflection questions,

Missing,

About your friend Elle.

You can journal about these,

You can think about these,

You can fall asleep pondering them,

You can take a voice memo of your responses to these.

You can write down something about them now and then revisit these questions in the next six months,

But I want you to allow her life and her memory to be able to come with you into the future.

Some of these may feel hard or scary to answer,

Some of them may be incredibly easy.

Here we go.

Number one.

In what ways did Elle show you how to live?

Number two.

What gifts did Elle give you?

Number three.

If you believe in this sort of thing,

What strings do you think that Elle might be pulling on the other side or in the afterlife?

Number four.

How would you like to carry Elle with you?

Or said another way,

How do you bring a small piece of Elle into your life every day?

And finally,

How would you like to make sure that your connection to Elle stays strong?

There's a model in grief support spaces called Continuing Bonds Theory.

And it basically hypothesizes,

Shows that people grieve better when we continue bonds with people we love who have died.

Even if the conversation is one-sided,

Even if we're doing most or all of the talking.

I want to know how you are continuing to bond yourself to Elle.

Not just by looking into the past and reminiscing about old memories and grieving for what you lost,

Although that is a form of continuing bonds,

But transmuting that energy,

That friendship,

That glorious time that she gave you and that you had with her,

That you gave her.

You gave her a huge,

Huge chunk of your life.

How do you take that and let it inform how you go forward?

And if you're having any struggles with this,

If you want a roadmap to guide you here,

Missing,

I encourage you so strongly to join us in Life After Loss Academy.

You will meet like-minded people who know what it is to grieve a friend,

Including myself.

I will show you tools for getting grounded,

For making yourself the source of consistency.

I can teach you ways to integrate Elle's life into your life so that the bonds continue on.

And I can show you how to foster a beautiful,

Whatever that means to you,

Long-term relationship with grief so that grief no longer feels like something you're fighting or something you need to get over or move on from,

But something that can come with you into the future and be a part of your life in a way that informs how you'd like to live.

In taking grief into the long-term,

I often refer to it as grief moving from your focus,

The only thing you can see,

The thing that's staring you in the face,

To slowly sinking to your foundation,

Grief and loss and love and relationship being the thing you stand on as you begin to move forward.

This is what you can do with your friendship to Elle.

There is no way she will ever be absent from your life.

You both made damn sure of that,

That you are tied to each other,

Now,

Then,

Always,

Forever,

Into the future,

Amen,

Amen,

Amen,

Religiously or not,

Whichever one resonates with you.

The question now is,

Now that her death is true,

What will you do with the rest of your life?

And it can seem so overwhelming,

I hear you,

For that decision-making and that power and that control and that determination of what's next to be entirely in your hands,

But the good news is,

You can take it one step at a time,

You do not have to have it figured out tonight,

One of my favorite quotes from Morgan Harper Nichols,

You do not have to figure it all out tonight,

And you also have so many people in your life,

It sounds like,

Your wife,

Your child,

Friendships that are similar in some ways to Elle,

Friendships you have yet to make,

That are here to scaffold and support you as you find your way.

I'm thinking of you,

Good luck.