Grieving Places

The spaces that held us, the memories that shaped us, and the love that remains

There’s your childhood bedroom, where you grew up and dreamed big. Your grandparents’ well-loved, timeworn home, filled with stories and warmth. The school gym or field where you spent countless evenings perfecting your sport. The college bar just down the stairs, forever smelling of beer and echoing with memories. The park bench in NYC where you used to sit, lost in thought, when you first moved there after college. The family-owned Italian restaurant you went to every Sunday until, one day, it was gone. Your first family home, where you brought your sweet, sweet newborn babies home to. The darling preschool where you watched your daughter blossom, which she eventually outgrew. The city you loved and left during COVID, purely due to circumstance. The quiet stretch of road where conversations once flowed. Or perhaps most devastatingly, a home lost to a natural disaster. Each place, a chapter in the story of you.

Grieving places is about more than physical loss, it’s about the emotional landscapes they hold, heavy with the weight of memories, experiences, stories, and the pieces of ourselves that lived within them.

The first time I truly grieved the loss of a place was when both my grandparents had passed, the last being my grandmother, and it was time to sell their home. I returned, taking in every familiar detail, studying the placement of picture frames and knickknacks just as I had as a child. Everything was exactly as it had always been, each object in its spot bringing me comfort. The floral wallpaper in their tiny powder room, the milk chute mailbox we all fought to check, the living room that nobody sat in but always looked pristine. And the kitchen table - the heart of our family gatherings - where my summer birthdays were celebrated year after year. A morning manicure done by my grandmother, cheese grits made by my grandfather, dinner out, and a cake back at home with our entire family serenading me. Letting go of the house wasn’t just about the space itself - it was about saying goodbye to those moments, to a life where our grandparents were still in it.

The second time I truly grieved a place was when we sold our LA home during the pandemic - the home we bought together. It was the first I proudly purchased 50/50, a milestone that meant everything to me, having come from very little and earned everything on my own, even though my then-fiancé would have gladly bought it himself. We got married while living there, brought two of our children home from the hospital there, and built a life together within its walls. A calm, soulful 1926 Spanish perched above the buzzing city, where we created something beautiful. I am still grieving that home, that life, and the version of LA we left behind.

Over the last several months, I’ve had friends lose homes to hurricanes and fires across the U.S., and the depth of their grief is overwhelming. Not just because they’ve lost things but because of the sudden, merciless end to a chapter they weren’t ready to close. One friend described it as a death - sudden and utterly shocking. She went on to say that even if they did rebuild, it wouldn’t be the same. And that’s just the thing about grief - it will never be the same. And it’s that finality that stings the most.

What I would give to walk through my grandparents’ side door greeted by my grandmother knitting in her chair, my grandfather reading a book, and the coziness that came with knowing my favorite snacks were stocked just for me.

But if grief teaches us anything, it’s that in loss, love remains. The places we mourn may no longer stand as they once did, but the memories, the laughter, the life lived within them, they’re indestructible. Even if it doesn’t feel that way today, they exist in the way we tell our stories, in the traditions we carry forward, and in the love that lingers long after the doors have closed.

We may grieve places, but we can also take them with us. In the fragrances that transport us back, in the recipes we recreate, in the songs that play at just the right moment, and in the people who shared those spaces with us. The walls may be gone, and sometimes, the people in them too, but the imprint remains, woven into who we are and how we move forward. Grief may mark the end of an era, but never the end of what it meant.