Grieving somebody who’s still alive – Liz Gleeson

16th January 2026

We’re used to thinking of grief as something that happens after a death. But many people are carrying a quieter, more confusing kind of grief — mourning someone who is still alive. 

 It might be a parent lost to dementia, a partner changed by addiction or illness, or a relationship that no longer exists in the way it once did. And because no one has died, this grief often goes unspoken and unsupported. 

Liz Gleeson, grief therapist and founder of Shapes of Grief, talks about what it really means to grieve someone who’s still here — and why that pain is so often misunderstood. 

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