Grief is one of the most difficult emotions to deal with. It’s a dull ache that can happen with just about any loss, big or small, that you experience. We’ve created a grief letter template, which is a free resource, to help you write a letter about your grief.
The worksheet will help you re-examine the way you deal with loss and understand it. This letter is designed for anyone who has lost someone and it comes with both sentence starter prompts and a sample letter written below under each step.
You won’t be able to immediately pass through each of the stages of grieving, but you may be able to talk through the pain in a way you may not have done yet. Think of this printable journal (free download!) as a grief gift to yourself.
While we want to be clear that there is no replacement for qualified professionals, expert support, or grief therapists in the room with you, free templates like this one can make mental health more accessible for someone who has experienced loss.
This post is all about a grief letter template.
GRIEF LETTER TEMPLATE:
1. Address the family member or close friend you lost
Start with a greeting. You can keep it simple with something like “Dear X.” Or you could be playful and address it to them like you’re going to send it to them. The goal behind a grief letter is that you let it aid in the grieving process.
That might mean you’re not ready to get silly with the letter. You may still be going through that difficult time that makes it really hard to imagine anything silly. It may also feel like writing a letter to someone no longer in your life is painfully pointless.
The most important thing in doing this is to challenge yourself to work through the painful feelings of loss without overwhelming yourself or moving too fast in the process. The best way to know the difference is by listening to your mind and body.
If you feel like you’re challenging yourself and it brings you even the smallest amount of joy, catharsis, or comfort, you know you’re headed in the right direction.
Sample:
“Dear Charlie,
I’m writing because I miss you and I think this whole “writing a letter to someone who is dead” thing may help me feel better. It’s not guaranteed, but you may enjoy having something to do wherever you are anyway.”
2. Share one of your favorite memories with them
You can include more than one memory if you’d like. But, it’s a good idea to really focus on one positive memory that makes you laugh or smile when you think of it. It should be a powerful one that almost makes you react without thinking.
When you’re grieving, powerful memories seem to be the only time you get to experience joy. So, pick a memory that comes to mind and tell them about it. Sure, they were there, but we all love listening to people talk to us about joyful memories that involve us.
Therefore, you know they will love hearing it and they will love listening to the way you describe it. Be honest about your feelings. This is the space for you to write openly about the pain and joy that you’re feeling. If you’re writing about the memory and you’re angry, that’s okay and you can include that.
You can write about how angry you are that you don’t get more memories like this. Or, if you’re feeling more sadness than anything else, tell them about that.
Of course, if you’re feeling joy from talking about a memory that makes you happy, let yourself feel it. There’s no shame in feeling more than one thing at a time.
Sample:
“Dad sent me a picture of us together recently. It made me remember when we were up on Mount Evans together, which I completely forgot before I saw the picture. I remember you did not, under any circumstances, want to get out of the car to take the picture.
So, I had to drag you out to stand in front of the sign with me. You were okay with it because I was hugging you and keeping you warm, even though you had a thick coat. I’m glad I made you get out of the car.
I’m glad that Dad wanted to take a picture of us because I would never have remembered that moment without it. More than that, I’m glad that I got to remember you out of the blue. It’s getting harder to remember the small moments with you and that’s pretty scary.”
3. Pinpoint how you’re feeling at this moment and tell them
You may have already started talking about how you’re feeling at the moment. However, this is your opportunity to dig in. In a way, the memory you shared acts as an access point through which you can get to the feelings a little easier.
Right now is not the time to worry about writing down the right words or saying the wrong thing. For many of you, this letter of condolence will not be read by anyone else. So, let yourself say it like it is.
Avoid that perfectionist impulse to filter everything you say until it sounds “good enough.” Most of the time, when you write a letter, you want it to sound beautiful and be well done because it’s a paper copy that someone will actually get in the mail and read.
In this case, think of the person who lost as incredibly supportive of this process. They want you to move through the stages of grief and they hope that the practice of writing will help you get there.
If you, as a grieving person, are struggling to pinpoint your emotion, then try to focus on one word. Think of only one word to describe your feelings right now. You are probably feeling many different types of emotions.
But, you can likely sum them up with one complicated, annoying word. Start by writing, “I feel… because…” and see where it takes you. If you stray from the prompt, try diving back in to make sure that you have explored all of your feelings.
Sample:
“I feel guilty right now because I feel like I have replaced you even though I think about you a lot. It took a while for me to love someone else like you, but, after a few months, I needed someone. So, I found someone that I really love.
Don’t get me wrong—they have their flaws and they have such a wild personality compared to you. But, I think you would have loved them. I feel guilty because I know that I would never have met them if it weren’t for you leaving.
And, if I’m being honest, I’m also feeling guilty because I am having a harder and harder time remembering basic things about what it was like to be in the room with you. Like I have to force myself to imagine what it was like to hug you.
I can’t remember the actual feeling anymore. It’s funny because I knew you were going to pass away long before you did. So, I kept telling myself to memorize the moment and take it in. Now, it seems like that didn’t really matter in the long run and that hurts a lot.”
4. Say everything you never said to them while they were in your life
We all have things we’d never say to the people in our lives. Maybe we don’t realize we want to say them until that person is gone. Or maybe we know we’d never be brave enough to say them aloud.
Whatever it might be, there’s something that instantly comes to mind when we think about the person we lost. This is your opportunity to say those things “aloud.” It will be different because the person will never actually hear you say those things.
But, you will at least come away from your lost relationship, knowing that everything was said in the end.
As scary as it is to deal with the loss of someone, especially if you feel like there’s unfinished business there, grief letters are one of the most powerful tools for helping you to move past that.
The things that you were too afraid to say can finally see the light of day, and you can finally feel better knowing that they are out there even if the person never got to hear them. This is the point in the bereavement letter where you can say specific things and get very detailed.
You can extend this part of the letter for as long as it needs to extend for you to feel better at the end of this. It’s also okay if you don’t have much to say. It doesn’t make your grief any different or any less valid.
Sample:
“I think I’ve told you everything that I’ve wanted to tell you. Since I knew that your death was going to be soon, I was always trying to say what I thought. I didn’t want to leave anything on the table after you were gone.
And I’m pretty proud that I kept that promise to myself. Having said everything to you while you were alive, doesn’t change the hard times or make it any less painful to have lost you. But, I can at least rest assured that you felt loved.
Honestly, the only thing that I could’ve kept from you while you were alive is that I never wanted to say the words “you” and “death” in the same sentence. I was too scared to manifest it, even though I knew that I had no power over the moment when you would die.”
5. Tell them why you’re grateful to have known them
Explain to your loved one what they taught you and why you were grateful to have known them. Since we’re addressing this as a step in your goodbye letter template, we also need to address the situations in which this step isn’t necessary.
As hard as it is to lose someone that you loved a lot and you were not ready to say goodbye to, it’s also really hard to lose someone that hurt you. When you love someone and they hurt you, that, unfortunately, doesn’t always make it easy to love them less.
So, if you’ve loved someone and lost them, but they hurt you, know that you don’t have to do this step. You can leave everything as it is and accept that positivity does not belong in all parts of your life.
Sometimes you’re allowed to be angry and hurt and process those feelings without coming out the other side with positivity and gratitude. Gratitude is very important to growth and happiness overall.
So, we do not ever want to discourage you from working towards a place of gratitude no matter how much someone has hurt you. But we also do not ever want to invalidate the way someone has hurt you.
We, at Knockoff Therapy, do not believe that you have to forgive every single person in your life. Some people hurt you in a way that you can’t forgive no matter what positive meaning you try to find in it.
It’s important to work through that pain and find peace for your own well-being. However, you never need to do that for someone else’s sake, even if they’re gone from your life.
Sample:
“You were there when I needed someone to love me unconditionally. I hope you felt me love you even just half as strongly as you loved me. I will be forever grateful for the fun we had because you wanted to have fun, the comfort you gave me, and the companionship.
You somehow always made me feel less alone without making me feel like you pitied me. In some ways, I think you were the first one to show me how to love someone like that and why that type of love matters.”
6. Acknowledge this condolence letter as a step in the grieving process
When we say to acknowledge this letter as a part of the grieving process, this step is more clearly for you than it is for the other person. For most of these steps, you can imagine the other person as your audience. In some ways, that makes it easier to write this letter.
You can pretend they’ll read it and that you’re not writing this for the sole goal of this grief worksheet being to work through your feelings. However, when you enter this step, that will be a little different.
This step is about recognizing this exercise as what it is. You have undergone significant loss and a traumatic event. The act of writing this formal letter will begin your grief therapy.
So, write something, still with the intention of the other person reading it, but for your own grief care. Acknowledge this letter for what it is. You would not be writing this if that person were still in your life.
Think of this letter as a ritual, with the help of prompts, whether it serves as the start of your grieving process, a way to help you through the tasks of mourning, or serves as the ceremonial end to your emotional release.
Sample:
“I’m writing this letter because I have a lot of feelings that I don’t know what to do with. Part of me wants to ignore them, but then they just hurt in the background.
I can feel the guilt of “replacing” you and slowly forgetting the details of what made you you just in the background of my life. Sometimes, I have this painful feeling and I search for the reason behind it only to realize that it’s losing you.
I will never stop grieving you, but this letter can serve as a turning point. You know everything that I need you to know and I know you will never be truly gone, which makes this a tiny bit easier.
But, now, maybe I can focus on the part where I love you and love looking back on our memories without feeling guilty or sad every time. I deserve to have beautiful memories with you that stay beautiful and are not tainted by own grief journey.”
7. Conclude your personal letter to them
Bring your letter to a close in any way that feels authentic to you. End this letter the same way you finished, with hopefully a small change in the way that you feel. Maybe you conclude with an inside joke or you say I love you and end it with your name.
Think of this conclusion as the end of one stage of your grief. People never stop grieving the losses in their lives.
But, letters like this and rituals that close one part of the process can help you feel like you are moving through the process rather than staying stagnant with the added empowering choice of sharing. The nice thing about this letter is that you can keep it forever to look back.
You can even add to it as a way to capture the way you move through each stage of grief. This is a living document, specifically designed to help you through a difficult period of your life no matter the amount of time it lasts. So, change it in ways that make the pain feel a little easier.
Sample:
“Anyway, I think I will wrap this up now. I love you and I know you know I always will. Sometimes, it just feels good to say it.
Sincerely,
Me.”
