THE SMALL DEATHS WE DON’T NAME

Not all deaths arrive with ceremony.

Some arrive quietly, without witnesses, without language.
A role ends.
A season passes.
A version of yourself no longer answers when called.

These are the losses we’re rarely taught how to grieve.

There’s no funeral for the woman you were when your children no longer need you in the same way.

No ritual for the body that begins to change its rhythms.

No public mourning for the marriage that ends, even when love once lived there.

And yet, something real has died.

When these losses go unnamed, they don’t disappear. They settle into the body. They show up as restlessness, sadness without a clear source, a sense that something is off but hard to explain.

Naming these moments as deaths doesn’t make them heavier.

It makes them honest.

And honesty is often the first step toward peace.