I love to miss people. I think missing is a complete and beautiful expression of love, just as much as having.

When I first encountered this description of grief it really resonated, but it's felt less poignant as I've gotten older, partly because I find myself grieving people who still live, and are simply too different from how I remember them or how I thought I knew them to support the relationships I want to have with them.

I suppose the principle still holds: the "love" I have for those versions of those people cannot go anywhere, but that feels dissonant with not wanting to know these people as they are, or knowing the relationship I'm wishing for is otherwise ill-fated. In either case, the relationship cannot continue, and that drive the sense of grief anyway, so maybe I'm just splitting hairs.

Such is the complex nature of grief and of human relationships, I suppose.

Love is best shared. Grief can be a powerful tool to help build up healthy new relationships.

"what is grief if not love persevering"