A shared universe › Blog › When there is no goodbye · Español
Ambiguous loss is the loss of someone who is neither fully here nor fully gone: a missing person nobody has news of, or a person with dementia who is still beside you but is no longer who they were. Without certainty there is no closure, which is why this grief is so hard; but it is possible to learn to live with it. Some losses never quite become losses. The person is not here, but they have not completely gone either. There is no funeral and no date, and grief is left unable to begin or to end.
The therapist Pauline Boss named it while working with families of soldiers missing in the wars in Vietnam and Laos. She called it ambiguous loss and distinguished two forms. In one, the person is physically absent but still present in the minds of their family, because nobody knows what became of them: someone who disappeared, someone who emigrated and has not been heard from, a son or daughter who cut off contact. In the other, the person is right there but is no longer who they were: dementia, brain injury, addiction.
Because there is no certainty. You cannot fully grieve someone who might come back, or who is still sitting in their armchair. Hope and sorrow take turns without rest, and the people around you do not know what to say.
When the cause is a long illness, Boss and her colleague Couden described how lack of clarity about the prognosis, the person’s condition from day to day and abilities that come and go confuse the relationship: the family may become entirely absorbed in the illness or, on the contrary, start to avoid the person who is ill. Both reactions are understandable.
Boss insisted on understanding ambiguous loss as a situation that comes from outside, not as a weakness or failing in the person living through it. If you feel stuck, it is because the situation itself has no clear way out, not because you are grieving wrongly.
The book in which Boss set out her idea, published in 1999, has a subtitle that sums it up: learning to live with unresolved grief. Instead of waiting for a closure that may never come, many people find relief in holding two things at once:
It is not resignation. It is no longer demanding of yourself an answer nobody has.
If you are caring for someone with dementia or an illness that is getting worse, you may also find Saying goodbye ahead of time and Carer burnout useful.
Because there has been no death, there are often no condolences, no rituals and no permission to be sad. It is a kind of grief others do not see, like those described in The griefs nobody sees. It can help to explain to the people close to you what you are going through, even if it does not have a name everyone knows.
If the waiting or the absence is keeping you from sleeping, eating or getting on with your life, or if you feel there is no way out, talk to your GP or a psychologist. You do not have to carry this without company. In Spain you can talk to a person at the Teléfono de la Esperanza, 717 003 717, at any time. If you are thinking of ending your life, call 024: it is free, confidential and answered 24 hours a day. If there is immediate danger, call 112. In another country, call your local emergency number or a helpline there.
In A shared universe you can light a star for that person, “For someone” or “For someone who is gone”, whichever feels right to you.
You can write what you hope for or what weighs on you, in a few words and without names. It shines for seven days and, if you like, you can come back and keep it lit for as long as the waiting goes on.