A love letter to Grief

A love letter to Grief

because you’ve taught me more about love than life ever could.

You’ve made me realise time makes fools of us all.

I’ve learned your lessons in between the chaos and quiet of the wards

And I’ve been a diligent student of yours

an amalgamation of what I know now about love

has come from a mosaic of my memories of you.

When I verify a death of a man and his wife comes out to tell me that

he was the love of her life for 55 years

I think some people have a wealth that few ever experience.

When I see two sisters say goodbye to their Dad

repeatedly telling him in his last moments that they love him,

over and over again, their voices echoing,

until they run out of breath and he runs out of time

I think about the last time I said the same to mine.

Their grief is so palpable

it’s a weight I carry around with me all day.

A young Mum who comes in with a headache and leaves with a brain mass

putting on a brave face along with her makeup in the morning

I know she’s thinking of her daughter in mourning.

A man with dementia, looking for his dead wife

Grieving her all over again, inconsolable, in agony

I learn love doesn’t just leave once.

An old couple, they look at each other and

I know, they know that this is the last time they’ll see each other alive

I watch as they say goodbye with a glance.

You’ve taught me not to take love for granted, to be grateful

to look for glimpses of it in the mundane, ordinary parts of life

before life makes fools of us all.

You’re not always cruel, sometimes kind,

sometimes a stark and sobering reminder

that life and loss are two words pronounced differently

with the same meaning.

Dr Lovena R. Nawoor

F1, Wessex Foundation School

April 2026

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