To the one who knows you are not the same person you were,

Grief doesn’t only take someone you love.
It takes parts of the life you lived with them.
Parts of the person you were because of them.

There is a kind of death inside loss that no one prepares you for.
Not metaphorical. Not poetic. Real.

The version of you who existed in a world where they were alive.
The version who made choices, plans, jokes, assumptions from inside that reality.
That self does not survive intact.

And maybe you’re starting to feel that.
The quiet recognition that something in you ended too.
That some ways of seeing, wanting, trusting, moving through the world are gone.

This is one of the hardest truths of grief:
you don’t just miss them.
You miss the self who existed when they were here.

You may be noticing it in small ways.
In what you no longer care about.
In what suddenly matters unbearably.
In how little tolerance you have for pretending, postponing, performing a life that doesn’t feel true anymore.

This isn’t damage.

This is consequence.

Love changed who you were.
Loss has changed who you are.

And the truth many people reach; slowly, painfully, honestly - is this:
part of you died with them.
And you would not want that part to have survived.

Because it belonged to a world where they lived.
Because it was shaped in relationship with them.
Because its death is proof of how real that bond was.

If you’re beginning to sense this; the ending of one self and the slow, unclear forming of another -you are not broken.

You are in transformation that has nothing to do with self-improvement
and everything to do with reality.

One true thing:
You are not becoming someone else. You are becoming someone who has loved and lost, and that changes the shape of a life.

Quote:
“Grief is not a problem to be solved, but a process to be lived.”
- Megan Devine

Song:
“Roslyn” - Bon Iver & St. Vincent
(Spacious, searching, and honest in the way becoming often is.)

A gentle ritual, if it feels right:
Choose one quiet moment this week.
Sit somewhere familiar.
Place a hand on your chest.
And ask, without rushing an answer:
What feels true for me now?
Let whatever comes be enough.

Journal prompt (only if it feels okay):
What do I know now about myself, life, or love that I didn’t know before?

Write fragments.
Contradictions.
Half-truths.
This is not about clarity. It’s about listening.

One thing to remember this week:
You are not losing yourself. You are meeting yourself.

A note from me:
One of the deepest truths I’ve had to live into is that Kahlia’s death didn’t just break my heart; it ended a version of me.

A mother in a living relationship with her daughter.
A woman making choices inside a world where my daughter existed.

That self is gone.
And I wouldn’t want her back.

Because she belonged to a life that no longer exists.
Because her death is the evidence of how intertwined our lives were.
Because only someone who had loved Kahlia as deeply as I did could lose her and not be fundamentally altered.

If you’re realising that part of you died with the person you lost, I want you to know how deeply understandable that is.
You don’t come through love and loss intact.
You come through changed.

And if this is the letter you pass on to someone else, I hope it gives them language.
If it’s one you sit with quietly, I hope it gives you permission.

With you,
Kirsten