Two weeks ago, I told you the story of Brioche and Kris with a K. They were two best friends, four decades of shared life and two cancer diagnoses delivered just weeks apart, as if illness itself had decided they would not walk this road separately.

I told you then that in a cruel twist no one could have prepared for, Kris with a K outlived Brioche despite being the one medically prepped to die first, despite having the more aggressive prognosis, and in spite of having already rearranged her life in anticipation of the end.

Kris with a K had even changed her will because she outlived the beneficiary of a significant portion of her estate. That beneficiary was Brioche.

So, here is what I thought I would tell you next.

What no one talks about is what happens after survival rearranges itself unexpectedly, what happens when the person who prepared to die is left behind to wait. Waiting to die is a different kind of grief. It is not the grief we recognise. It is neither the grief of absence nor the grief of after. It is grief that exists while you are still breathing.

Kris with a K had already said her goodbyes. She had made peace with leaving.She had done the emotional accounting required when you believe your time is nearly done. And then Brioche died. This threw her off. It was so sudden. It was right in the middle of a painful divorce, with an estate complicated by unfinished decisions, unresolved relationships, and a life that did not get the dignity of closure.

Kris with a K was left holding a future she had already released. She begged God until she got tired of begging. She moved through seasons that didn’t follow logic.There was a period of fierce determination: walking miles, raising money for charity, proving to herself and to the world that she was still alive.
And then came the collapse. Blackout blinds drawn. A cold, dark room. The world shut out completely.

She wondered what people were thinking while she was still here. She wondered whether they were watching her with pity; whether they were already practising life without her.
In many ways, they were. Her family mourned her quietly while she was alive.Friends walked on eggshells, careful with words, careful with hope. Some disappeared entirely, not from lack of love, but from fear – fear of saying the wrong thing, fear of proximity to mortality.

People rallied around her in the weeks they believed were her last. Love came in waves. They were all sincere, generous and overwhelming.
However, one friend stood out. This friend disturbed her deeply. This friend behaved as though Kris with a K had already died. She grieved openly. Constantly. Every conversation felt like a farewell that had already happened. Eventually, Kris with a K asked her about it. The friend said something neither of them had language for before:

“We know how to grieve when someone is dead, but nobody teaches you what to do with grief when the person is still alive.”

Kris with a K had no answer. She said only,“Brioche would have known what to say.”

…and so, they sat in silence that was comfortable enough, but ever so unbearably loud.
This is the untold truth.

Some grief begins long before death. Some goodbyes happen while people are still breathing. Surviving when you were prepared to die is not relief…it is disorientation.


Kris with a K had already let go of life. No one tells you what to do in that space.  This is not a story about fairness. It is not a lesson neatly tied with meaning.

It is simply this:

Waiting to die rearranges everything. It rearranges your relationships, your faith, your identity, your place in the world, and when death finally comes, those who waited are not spared grief, no. They inherit a heavier version of it because they grieved twice.

See you next week.

+ posts

IG Handle: @unshakable.is.a.state.of.mind