A parent's death can unsettle us in unexpected ways…
…even if it was anticipated, even when the relationship was complicated.
You may feel orphaned at an age where that word feels strange. You may be more aware of your own mortality than ever before.
Or you may be carrying a grief that's tangled up with things left unsaid, unresolved, or unfinished — and not quite sure how to hold all of it at once.
If any of these words feel like yours, you're in the right place.…..
“I feel unmoored, like I've lost my whole sense of safety and home.”
“Our relationship was complicated, and now I can't fix it or finish it.”
“I didn't expect to feel this lost at my age.”
“People think I should be fine since it was 'expected’.”
This grief doesn't follow the rules people expect.
Whether the relationship was close or layered with complexity, losing a parent removes something foundational — a sense of home, of origin, of where you come from. That grief deserves space without anyone telling you it should have been easier because you saw it coming, or because they lived a long life, or because things between you were hard.
This loss often stirs up more than grief alone. Losing a parent can surface old wounds, unfinished conversations, and questions that no longer have anyone to answer them.
Our work together uses Cognitive Processing Therapy, mindfulness/somatic/EMDR techniques, and narrative approaches to help you hold the full complexity of who they were to you — without flattening it into something simpler than it was.
Grief rarely respects the boundaries we expect it to. I bring that understanding into every session.
The bonds continue even though the person is not here.
I've lost parents too, and I know firsthand how disorienting this grief can be — even when you thought you were prepared, even when they were the strong ones or when the relationship wasn't simple.
What I carry from those losses into my work is this: losing a parent asks something of you that's hard to name. It removes a layer of the world that you didn't fully realize was there until it was gone.
Whether this loss was anticipated, sudden, or tangled up in a relationship that was difficult to explain, it still unsettles something deep, and that deserves space.