The four paths you describe—invent, refuse, find and lose, or never leave—are not just psychological patterns. They are survival strategies that we carry into every relationship, often without knowing it.
What struck me most is the line: "Some grief doesn't close. It settles into a person the way a lake settles into a landscape." That is the part we do not talk about enough. We are told that healing means closure, that grief should end, that the wound should disappear. But for many of us, it does not. It becomes part of the terrain. It shapes how we see, how we trust, how we let people in.
The question of "how many parents do we actually have?" is not really about parents. It is about the people who stand in that gap for a season—teachers, partners, friends, strangers who see something in us that we had not yet seen in ourselves. And the grief is not that they leave. It is that we often never tell them what they were to us.
I find myself sitting with the question: what would it look like to let the grief settle without trying to drain the lake? To hold what was missing and still go on living, loving, and letting people in—not despite the absence, but alongside it.
In our time, we are often tempted by the promise that our traumas can simply be erased, through one method, one practice, or one New Age coach who claims to have found the answer. But we know that healing does not really work that way. We do not always overcome our pain. Sometimes, we learn to live alongside it. To make room for it without allowing it to define the whole landscape of our lives.
Yes. The promise of erasure is the seduction. The reality of integration is the work. The trauma does not disappear. It becomes part of the terrain. It shapes the contours of the landscape without becoming the whole of it.
The grief that settles like a lake into a landscape is not a failure of healing. It is a sign that the healing has taken a different form. It is not about closure. It is about coexistence. Learning to live alongside the absence without being consumed by it. Learning to let the grief shape you without letting it define you.
The people who stand in the gap, the teachers, partners, friends, strangers who see something in us that we had not yet seen, they are the ones who help us hold the grief without drowning in it. They do not remove the lake. They help us learn to live beside it.
Everything in life seems to be a pursuit of leveling the terrain you mention. There are certain things that offer answers (religion, self help, spiritualism) but the structure of it all seems to negate the greater work of self acceptance. Are our edges what make us unique?
I often find myself drawn to friends who seem to have smoother “terrain”. Who, by luck or chance or work, have had the opposite of my childhood. And then I marvel at the ignorance of the grief I feel - how wonderful it must be that they don’t to have to feel this cavity in their chest. But I think the shininess of their experiences is just my own the unfamiliarity with the particular edges of the grief they feel.
Yes. The erasure is the seduction. The integration is the work. The terrain is not meant to be leveled. It is meant to be inhabited. The edges are not flaws. They are the features that make the landscape recognizable. Without them, there would be no shape, no contour, no distinction.
The smooth terrain you admire in others is not the absence of grief. It is simply grief that has taken a different form. The unfamiliarity of their edges is not a measure of their wholeness. It is a measure of your distance from their experience. The cavity you feel in your chest is not a void. It is a space that has been shaped by what you have carried. And that shape is unique to you.
The work is not to erase the shape. It is to learn to live with it without being consumed by it.
Jung's remark on the 'lives the parents have not lived' is very insightful. I would extend it further back to grandparents, the lineage, the transgenerational dynamics we are all subject to. Some relief can come, I believe, from honouring some of those lives not lived. Thank you for the essay.
This is such an impactful piece. As a queer person, I talk with my friends a lot about chosen family, and having been estranged from my own parents I have noticed a pattern in myself that I seek out wisdom, guidance and validation from older people I cross paths with. Though I’d noticed the pattern I hadn’t paid any mind to the need I was trying to serve within myself.
Thank you for this essay, very interesting and touching. I am thinking about not only the roles of parents, but of grandparents. Sometimes I yearn for the relationship I had with my grandmother - she who filled in the gaps that my parents were, at times, not able to fill. Yet the grandmother never becomes the parent - rather a sage, a mentor. She can teach, besides love, wisdom. That can go a long way, maybe even further, than finding a substitute for a parent.
The four paths you describe—invent, refuse, find and lose, or never leave—are not just psychological patterns. They are survival strategies that we carry into every relationship, often without knowing it.
What struck me most is the line: "Some grief doesn't close. It settles into a person the way a lake settles into a landscape." That is the part we do not talk about enough. We are told that healing means closure, that grief should end, that the wound should disappear. But for many of us, it does not. It becomes part of the terrain. It shapes how we see, how we trust, how we let people in.
The question of "how many parents do we actually have?" is not really about parents. It is about the people who stand in that gap for a season—teachers, partners, friends, strangers who see something in us that we had not yet seen in ourselves. And the grief is not that they leave. It is that we often never tell them what they were to us.
I find myself sitting with the question: what would it look like to let the grief settle without trying to drain the lake? To hold what was missing and still go on living, loving, and letting people in—not despite the absence, but alongside it.
In our time, we are often tempted by the promise that our traumas can simply be erased, through one method, one practice, or one New Age coach who claims to have found the answer. But we know that healing does not really work that way. We do not always overcome our pain. Sometimes, we learn to live alongside it. To make room for it without allowing it to define the whole landscape of our lives.
Yes. The promise of erasure is the seduction. The reality of integration is the work. The trauma does not disappear. It becomes part of the terrain. It shapes the contours of the landscape without becoming the whole of it.
The grief that settles like a lake into a landscape is not a failure of healing. It is a sign that the healing has taken a different form. It is not about closure. It is about coexistence. Learning to live alongside the absence without being consumed by it. Learning to let the grief shape you without letting it define you.
The people who stand in the gap, the teachers, partners, friends, strangers who see something in us that we had not yet seen, they are the ones who help us hold the grief without drowning in it. They do not remove the lake. They help us learn to live beside it.
‘The erasure is the seduction’ is so spot on.
Everything in life seems to be a pursuit of leveling the terrain you mention. There are certain things that offer answers (religion, self help, spiritualism) but the structure of it all seems to negate the greater work of self acceptance. Are our edges what make us unique?
I often find myself drawn to friends who seem to have smoother “terrain”. Who, by luck or chance or work, have had the opposite of my childhood. And then I marvel at the ignorance of the grief I feel - how wonderful it must be that they don’t to have to feel this cavity in their chest. But I think the shininess of their experiences is just my own the unfamiliarity with the particular edges of the grief they feel.
Fascinating topic and fantastic comments.
Yes. The erasure is the seduction. The integration is the work. The terrain is not meant to be leveled. It is meant to be inhabited. The edges are not flaws. They are the features that make the landscape recognizable. Without them, there would be no shape, no contour, no distinction.
The smooth terrain you admire in others is not the absence of grief. It is simply grief that has taken a different form. The unfamiliarity of their edges is not a measure of their wholeness. It is a measure of your distance from their experience. The cavity you feel in your chest is not a void. It is a space that has been shaped by what you have carried. And that shape is unique to you.
The work is not to erase the shape. It is to learn to live with it without being consumed by it.
The timing of this article- as we just lost my husband, i see not only the grief of my kids, my father and his parents.
sending you a big hug!
Jung's remark on the 'lives the parents have not lived' is very insightful. I would extend it further back to grandparents, the lineage, the transgenerational dynamics we are all subject to. Some relief can come, I believe, from honouring some of those lives not lived. Thank you for the essay.
This is such an impactful piece. As a queer person, I talk with my friends a lot about chosen family, and having been estranged from my own parents I have noticed a pattern in myself that I seek out wisdom, guidance and validation from older people I cross paths with. Though I’d noticed the pattern I hadn’t paid any mind to the need I was trying to serve within myself.
thank you for your words!
Thank you for this essay, very interesting and touching. I am thinking about not only the roles of parents, but of grandparents. Sometimes I yearn for the relationship I had with my grandmother - she who filled in the gaps that my parents were, at times, not able to fill. Yet the grandmother never becomes the parent - rather a sage, a mentor. She can teach, besides love, wisdom. That can go a long way, maybe even further, than finding a substitute for a parent.