The Unbearable Weight of Goodbye: Learning to Live with Loss

The Question We Can’t Answer

How do we ever come to terms with the fact that someone we love is about to die? No matter how familiar we become with grief, no matter how many times death has crossed our paths, the truth remains: it never gets easier. Anticipated or sudden loss leaves a mark that time alone can soften but never fully erase.

“Grief never gets easier; time only softens its sharpest edges.”

// The Rollercoaster of Emotion

In those moments, emotions rarely arrive in order. Relief that a loved one’s pain is over. Anger at the cruelty of fate. A hollow sadness that seems to stretch endlessly. And beneath it all, the silent pressure to stay strong for ourselves, for our families, for everyone else who cannot.

“Goodbye is the gift we’re given, but it never feels like enough.”

// The Distance of Goodbyes

If there is any small mercy in knowing death is coming, it is the chance to say goodbye. Yet even that feels incomplete for many of us in the UAE, far from the countries we call home. Farewells are often spoken over phone calls instead of whispered in person, and the distance can make an already unbearable reality harder still.

// The Lesson of Life’s Fragility

But within the heartbreak lies a reminder that is both brutal and beautiful: life and death are inextricably linked. One gives meaning to the other. It is in recognising the inevitability of endings that we learn to cherish the present. Every laugh, every ordinary conversation, every moment shared becomes something extraordinary when viewed through the fragile lens of impermanence.

“Death teaches us what life too often conceals: that time is the most precious currency we have.”

// Choosing to Live Fully

While none of us can escape the inevitability of loss, we can choose to live more fully, love more deeply, and never take for granted the gift of today.