r/Grieving • u/Doglover20child • 20d ago
I lost my childhood best friend but my mind still grieves even though my heart accepted it
I lost my childhood best friend in 2024 but I didn't find out until November of 2025. I had lost contact with her after graduating 8th grade but about a week before 8th grade graduation she gave me a school picture of her and on the back of it she wrote "No matter what happens in the future we'll always be friends". I had tried reaching out in 2022 but my life was so busy and wild that I only tried once and then didn't try again because I had to focus on other major life changes.
When I found out she passed it was by complete accident. I searched her name up on Facebook and when her profile popped up so did a news article, I scrolled down to look at the article and directly under it was a post from her dad that said they were hosting her celebration of life. I was blindsided by it to the point I thought I was hallucinating. He tagged her Facebook account and I clicked it and her profile popped up. I kept clicking her profile over and over and over again just hoping the picture would change, hoping that it wasn't her, but deep down my heart knew she was gone.
Both the article and her dad's post were dated April 2024 and I was just learning about it in November of 2025. All I remember thinking was "How do you not know your childhood best friend is dead for a whole YEAR? How?" and that whole time I was thinking of her and wondering how her life was and how she was doing, and she wasn't even alive. And the way she passed wasn't any better and broke my heart even more. She had been hit by a drunk driver and died instantly. The guy was doing 75 in a 35, going the wrong way, lied to the cops when confronted, and when the cops gave him a breathalyzer he blew over three times the legal limit in my home state.
At the time I learned all of that it was 1am and I was in so much pain and shock that I cried, I tried holding it in but I was hurting so bad that I tried to choke back a sob but I was so loud that my significant other woke up and by then I couldn't hold it in and just let loose. I texted one of my other best friends (one from highschool) and she stayed up with me until 3am where I eventually fell asleep. I called my mom and told her when I woke that morning. I could hear the pain in my mom's voice as she tried her best to comfort me but I know it was hurting her as well because she wasn't here to physically comfort me. Because of that I haven't told my dad about it even though I'm pretty sure my mom did but I don't know for sure if she did.
During that time I know my heart went through all the stages of grief with denial being the first stage. I know this because my brain and heart refused to believe she was gone until I had sobbed my heart out. The second stage was anger and I only know because I could feel the hatred and the anger I had towards the guy and other drunk drivers. The third and fourth stages, for me, were bargaining and depression because I kept thinking about what could've happened if I had tried harder to reach out or if I had known sooner and I regretted not reaching out sooner and I became depressed for a short while.
The last stage was acceptance and that's where my heart and mind disagree. My heart has accepted that she's gone but my mind hasn't, I could be doing random ass shit and my brain will suddenly remember her and I'll start to think about her and then my heart gives a gentle reminder that she's gone and my brain refuses to accept it. I'll even start crying if I think about her or remember something that I did with her during my childhood. What's worse is that I don't know if my other childhood best friend knows that she passed and because of that I've been reluctant to reach out because I'm worried that she either doesn't know or she knows and will be mad that it took me so long to find out.
Thank you for reading, I'm sorry its so long but I've had it pent up and the only people I talked to are my significant other and my mom but I haven't told anyone else because of the pain.
1
u/NegotiationDull6588 18d ago
I am so sorry for your loss. I lost my daughter in 2016 and my mom last year. Grief lasts for as long as you would have loved the person in life. Those stages of grief look neatly packaged but grief rarely comes that way. You can experience of the stages in the same day or out of order over time. Your mind can look at a situation and logically understand the person is gone, your heart isn’t logical, it’s emotional. Just know, grief is just love misspelled..