Understanding Ambiguous Grief, Family Estrangement, and Healing After Loss Grief doesn’t always arrive with casseroles, condolences, or a service to mark the moment everything changed. Sometimes grief arrives quietly—through disappointment that lingers, relationships that shift without resolution, or a future that slowly dissolves until one day you realize you’re standing in a life you never planned. For many parents, this grief is connected to family estrangement —a growing

There are moments in life when everything you thought you were building quietly falls apart. Not in a dramatic, explosive way. Not with clear endings or obvious villains. But in a slow, confusing unraveling that leaves you standing inside a version of life you never chose—and never imagined you’d be living. For many parents, this moment arrives through family estrangement —when a relationship with an adult child changes, fractures, or ends altogether. Whether influenced by co