Losing a Grandparent: Grief That Others Underestimate
When a grandparent dies, people around you tend to say the same few things. They had a long life. It was their time. At least you had them for so long.
All of that may be true. None of it is the point.
Losing a grandparent is one of the most common losses there is, and because it is common and "expected," it is one of the most quietly underestimated. You may get a day off work, a card, a hug at the funeral, and then an unspoken assumption that you will be fine by the following week. If you are not fine, you may start to wonder what is wrong with you.
Nothing is. This page is about why it can hurt more than people expect, the particular shapes this grief takes, and what tends to help.
Why it can hit harder than you were told it would
Some grandparents were parents. A great many people were raised partly or wholly by a grandparent: after school every day, every summer, or full time. If yours was the person who fed you, drove you, sat up with you when you were ill, then the grief you are carrying is closer to losing a parent. Our guide to coping with the loss of a parent may describe it better than anything written about grandparents.
They were often the one person with no agenda. Parents worry, push and correct. Many grandparents just delighted in you. Losing the one adult who thought everything you did was wonderful is a particular kind of loss, and it does not get named much.
They held the family together. In many families, the grandparent's house was where everyone met: the holiday table, the Sunday lunch, the place cousins knew each other. When they die, the gathering point can go with them. You are grieving a person and also, sometimes, a whole shape of family life.
They were the last link to something. A language. A country. A recipe nobody wrote down. Stories about your parent as a child. With a grandparent, part of the past closes, and you may feel a sudden urgency about everything you never asked.
It may be your first real loss. For many teenagers and young adults, a grandparent is the first person close to them who dies. First grief is disorienting: you do not yet know what it feels like, that it comes in waves, or that it can catch you off guard in a supermarket months later.
The grief people don't make room for
Grief researchers use the term disenfranchised grief for losses that other people do not fully recognise. Grandchildren often find themselves in this position, for a few reasons.
You are expected to support your parent. Your mother or father has just lost their own parent. It is natural to put their grief first, and right to look after them. But it can mean nobody is asking how you are, and you may not feel entitled to say.
Work and school may not see it. Some workplace bereavement policies give fewer days for a grandparent than for a parent, or none at all. Being given one day to grieve someone who helped raise you can feel like being told how much they counted.
"It was expected" closes the conversation. Long illnesses and old age give the people around you a way to move on quickly. It does not work the same way inside you. You can know a death was coming and still be knocked flat when it arrives; our piece on sudden death and long illness goes into why expected deaths still hurt.
You may have been far away. Grandchildren often live in a different city or country. You might have missed the last visit, the hospital days, even the funeral. If you could not be there, our guide to being left out of the funeral is about grieving at a distance.
The grief can be complicated, too
Not every grandparent was easy to love. Some were critical, some were distant, some caused harm to your parent that you only learned about later. Some had dementia for years, and the person you remember had faded long before the death.
You are allowed to grieve the grandparent you had, the one you wish you had, or both. You are allowed to feel relief, and to feel guilty about the relief. Our guides to relief after a death and guilt after a death are about exactly those feelings, and why they are more common than anyone says out loud.
What tends to help
There is no fix, and no right timeline; our page on how long grief lasts says more about that. But some things help many people.
Say it plainly to the people who matter. A sentence like "She was basically my second mum and I'm not doing well" gives friends and managers something to work with. People underestimate this loss mostly because they do not know what the grandparent was to you.
Talk to your parent about their parent. Not to fix anything, but because you are holding different halves of the same person. They knew your grandparent as a young parent; you knew them as an old one. Sharing stories can be one of the closest conversations you ever have with your mum or dad.
Ask the questions you still can. Aunts, uncles, older cousins and old friends know things you do not. Ask them now, while the stories are fresh and everyone is gathered. Our guide to recording a family history has a list of questions that get people talking.
Save their voice and their handwriting. Voicemails, videos, a birthday card. These feel unbearable to look at now and become precious later. Preserving a loved one's voice explains how to back up recordings before a phone is reset or an account is closed.
Cook the dish. If there was a food that meant them, make it, badly at first. Families who preserve recipes often find this is the thing that brings everyone back to the same table.
Keep one of their rituals. The walk they took, the card game, the way they answered the phone, the hymn. Carrying on one small habit is a way of keeping them in your week rather than only in your memory.
Get help if it does not ease. If months later you cannot function, cannot sleep, or feel hopeless, talk to a doctor or a counsellor. Our grief support resources page lists hotlines and groups in the US, UK, Canada and Australia.
If you are speaking at the funeral
Grandchildren are often asked to say a few words, do a reading, or carry the coffin. If you have been asked and do not know where to begin, how to write a eulogy walks through it, and what to say at a funeral has shorter options if a full speech is too much. A single story about something small, the way they peeled an orange or what they said every time you left, usually says more than a list of achievements.
If someone you know has lost a grandparent
Skip "they had a good innings." Ask instead: What were they like? What did you used to do together? Then let them talk. If you are writing a card, our sympathy messages page has a section written for the loss of a grandparent.
And check in after the funeral, when everyone else has gone back to normal. That is when this kind of grief tends to feel the loneliest.
Making a place for them
Many grandchildren end up being the family's keeper of photos: the one who scans the albums, collects the stories, and knows how to make things online. If that is you, a shared memorial page can give the whole family, including cousins scattered across the world, one place to add what they remember. Our list of online memorial ideas for grandparents has ways to fill one.
They were part of your life for all of it so far. It makes sense that losing them takes time.
GetMemorial helps families build lasting online memorials in minutes, a permanent home for the photos, recipes and stories a grandparent leaves behind. Start one at GetMemorial.com.
