Notes On… Anticipatory Grief
Anticipatory grief is the grief that shows up early.
Before the death.
Before the diagnosis takes its final toll.
Before the goodbye becomes real.
It’s the lump in your throat at the memory that hasn’t happened yet.
The guilt for crying while the person is still alive.
The quiet dread that lives beneath every mundane moment: How much longer will this last?
Clients say:
I feel like I’m grieving, but no one’s died yet.
I’m crying at the dinner table, and I don’t know why.
Is something wrong with me for already feeling this sad?
No.
Nothing is wrong.
Anticipatory grief is not a problem. It’s a process.
Psychologists like Therese Rando and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross have long validated it:
It is a real, measurable, and deeply human emotional response.
Research shows that anticipatory grief can lessen the emotional shock of loss when it finally comes.
It gives the psyche time to prepare, reflect, rehearse, and begin to release.
It’s confusing because it’s not clean.
It overlaps with hope.
With caregiving.
With guilt.
You find yourself laughing with them one moment, and quietly grieving their future absence the next.
And it’s healthy.
Because grief isn’t just about death.
It’s about change.
It’s about the felt sense of what is slipping away.
Anticipatory grief happens not only when a loved one is terminally ill—
but when a relationship is ending.
When memory is fading.
When a parent’s identity is shifting due to dementia.
When a chapter is closing, and your heart already knows.
It allows us to begin saying goodbye slowly, with love.
It allows us to feel gratitude more urgently.
It allows us to make meaning while the connection is still alive.
And yes, start adjusting to the internal landscape of life after.
It means you are loving them with awareness.
And if you find yourself weeping at a touch, holding your breath every time they pause, imagining what the world will feel like without their voice,
you are not broken.
You are grieving in advance.
And that is both wise and wild and deeply human.
