By Zainab Yusuf
The chair is still there. But the chair remains empty.
If you have ever lost someone you loved, you know this feeling. Grief is strange that way. It doesn’t only announce itself at funerals or cemeteries. It hides in familiar voices you no longer hear, in old photographs, and in phone numbers that are impossible to delete.
Grief is one of the few experiences that spares no one. It crosses every boundary—age, religion, wealth, education and nationality. Yet despite being universal, it remains one of the least understood human experiences. Society expects mourners to “move on,” even when their hearts are still learning how to beat around an empty space.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that millions of people each year experience bereavement following the death of loved ones, while humanitarian crises, conflicts and disease outbreaks continue to expose even more families to profound loss. Researchers estimate that around 7–10% of bereaved adults develop prolonged grief disorder, a condition where intense grief persists far beyond what is culturally expected and significantly interferes with daily functioning.
In 2022, the American Psychiatric Association officially recognized Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR). Similarly, the World Health Organization included Prolonged Grief Disorder in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), acknowledging that grief can sometimes become a serious mental health condition requiring professional support.
Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced the famous five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance—in 1969. Yet decades later, researchers caution against treating those stages as a checklist.
Psychologist George Bonanno, one of the world’s leading grief researchers, found that human beings grieve in remarkably different ways. Some cry every day. Others rarely cry at all. Some recover relatively quickly. Others carry grief for years.
Grief Has No Timeline
Faith Does Not Cancel Tears
Across cultures and religions, grief is treated not as failure but as part of being human.
When the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) lost his infant son Ibrahim, tears flowed from his eyes. He said: “The eyes shed tears, the heart grieves, but we say only what pleases our Lord.”
His response has comforted grieving Muslims for centuries. Likewise, the Bible records perhaps its most famous expression of sorrow in just two words: “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35)
Neither Islam nor Christianity teaches believers to suppress grief. Instead, both remind humanity that faith and sorrow can exist together.
Sociologists like Tony Walter argue against older, psychoanalytic models that suggest the goal of grief is to “let go” or detach from the deceased. Instead, they highlight that individuals often maintain an ongoing, internal, or virtual relationship with the deceased, keeping their memory alive in daily life and collective storytelling.
Grief wears many faces.
Like the university student who lost his mum.
“Some days, I just want to hear her say, ‘I’m proud of you.’ My mum meant everything to me. Losing her felt like everything in my life would fall apart,” he said.
Although his mother is gone, he says her influence remains alive in the relationships she built during her lifetime.
“I keep her memory alive by maintaining the relationships she had while she was alive. In that way, a part of her continues to live through the people she loved.”
The Last Word
There is a Hausa proverb:
“Mutuwa ba ta da rana.”
Death has no appointed day. It arrives without invitation. Without negotiation.
Call your parents, visit your grandparents, forgive your sibling, tell your friend you love them.
Because one ordinary day will become the day you remember forever.
And when grief finally comes knocking, as it eventually does for every human being, may it find you with as few regrets as possible.
In the end, we are remembered not by the years we lived…
…but by the love we left behind.
