Mindset Preparation: Writing in the Wake of What Wasn’t 

Have you ever longed to said goodbye to someone who is no longer in your life?

Whether it’s a loved one who has passed away, or a friend who ended contact, you may wish you had gotten to say goodbye. You had last words with them, but were they the words you would have said knowing they were the last?

I’m sometimes haunted by not being able to remember what my last words were to my mom as I was leaving the hospital the day before she died.

Or the time I said goodbye to my son as I left for the weekend, only to discover when I returned that he had died of a heart attack. I can’t remember if I hugged him and said “I love you”? or did I dash off with a brief, “See ya!”

When we see someone for the last time, whether they pass away, move away or withdraw their friendship without warning, there was always a “last time.” 

Writing about estrangement or an unspoken farewell takes courage—you are not chronicling what was, but also confronting what never got to be.

Start here: What would I have said if I’d had the chance? This is not indulgence. It is restoration.

This part of your life story, in this case, becomes both a reckoning and a resurrection. You honor your past not by rewriting it or pushing it down, but by acknowledging the gaps it left behind within you.

Writing Tip: Use Letters, Imagined Dialogues or More

When the goodbye didn’t happen as you'd like in real life, you can write it anyway. Try writing a letter to the deceased or absent person. Or craft a dialogue between your present self and the version of them who never gave you closure.

Example: “I waited for you at the corner of 4th and Howard. You never showed. But in my dreams, you do. And we talk about why.”

A more elaborate example: When my son passed before he got to make his first international trip, my youngest daughter and I decided to travel to Ireland in his honor, the place he had longed to visit. (I wrote about it on my blog at florabrown.com/blog/trip-well-taken

You are not inventing for fiction’s sake. You are giving space to the conversation and memories your heart still carries.

Encouragement: Grief Deserves Your Voice

Not every wound needs a full telling, but some ache for at least a paragraph. Even if the person has passed away or left and is unwilling to return, your truth is still yours to shape. You don’t need their permission to remember.

Even an estranged relationship shaped who you became. Let the grief be part of the legacy you preserve. Let your words be the embrace you never gave or received.

Takeaway: Closure Is a Myth. Expression Is the Medicine.

You may never feel finished with this part of your story—and that’s okay. Instead of chasing closure, pursue understanding. What did the person’s passing or life teach you? What did the silence shape in you?

Your life story is not about tying up every loose end. It’s about laying them gently into the archive, so others know they were real. The value of your story is intrinsic and not contingent on a neat resolution.

Insider Tip: Timeline Shifting Can Reveal Emotional Truths

If the moment of separation was abrupt or unclear, try writing the scene from different points in time:

• As it happened

• Five years later

• From your perspective today

Each version reveals new layers of insight. Use these variations not to confuse, but to deepen. The timeline may wobble, but your emotional clarity will strengthen.

Final Note: Loving and Caring Aren’t Always Loud, but They Linger

 We never speak many goodbyes as we would like if we knew they were our last words to someone. By writing them, we quiet the mind and give better shape to the memory. That’s the work of our life story.

Write the unsaid. Name the absence. Thank the ache. And above all, know this:

Your life story matters — even in the parting.

With reverence for what was and what still longs to be it helps us heal and learn to live in the voice of our loss.

Thank you for letting me be part of your life story journey.

Flora Brown, Ph.D.
[email protected]