Grief Far From Home

Grieving far from home means losing someone while living in another country, often without being able to say goodbye or mourn with family. It can feel unreal, lonely and full of guilt. Grief counselling online offers a regular, private place to talk about the person you've lost and about grieving at a distance, wherever you live.

What does grieving far from home feel like?

The news often arrives by phone, at an odd hour, in a message you read twice. Then you're expected to go to work and answer emails in a city where nobody knew them.

People grieving abroad often describe:

• Unreality. Without seeing the body or being at the funeral, part of you may not quite believe it.
• Guilt. For not visiting more, for not being there at the end, for having left in the first place.
• Being out of step. Your family is together, cooking, receiving visitors. You're alone, on a different clock.
• Invisible grief. Colleagues may not know, or may not understand why you're still sad weeks later.
• Grief for home itself. A parent's death can feel like losing the place you came from.

The NHS puts it simply: "There's no right or wrong way to feel" (NHS, grief after bereavement or loss). Guilt and shame can blur together here, and the glossary entry on guilt and shame explains how they differ.

What if you couldn't get home for the funeral?

Sometimes the timing makes it impossible. In Muslim families, burial usually happens very quickly, often before a relative abroad could book a flight. In other cases, the obstacle is a visa that wouldn't let you return, the cost of last-minute travel, a newborn, your own illness or a job you couldn't leave.

Whatever the reason, missing the funeral can leave grief without a container. Funerals do something important: they make the loss real, and they gather people round you. Watching a livestream on a laptop at 4am doesn't always do the same work, though for some people it helps.

How can you mourn from a distance?

Many cultures mark a death with rituals that continue well beyond the funeral. In many Sri Lankan Buddhist families, almsgivings are held on the seventh day, at three months and each year. Many Hindu families observe a sequence of rites in the days after a death. Christian families may hold anniversary Masses or memorial services.

From abroad, you might take part by video, send money for a ceremony, or quietly mark the day where you are. You might feel connected doing that. You might also feel more distant than ever, watching from a screen.

If you come from a family where caring for parents is a deep duty, a value some describe as filial piety, being absent when they needed you can be especially painful. The page on family duty and the self explores that pull.

Why is grief abroad harder to bear?

Grief needs company, and living abroad can leave you short of it. Your friends may be newer, your partner may not share your culture's ways of mourning, and the people who knew the person you've lost are thousands of miles away.

Researchers Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut described grief as moving back and forth between facing the loss itself and dealing with the changes it brings to daily life. They saw that movement, and taking breaks from grief, as a normal part of coping (Stroebe and Schut, 1999). Far from home, the daily-life side can crowd out the rest. There may be no one around who invites you to stop and remember.

Sometimes the hardest part comes later. You fly home months afterwards, and the house is the same except for one missing person. It's common for grief to return in full on that first visit, as if it had been waiting for you.

Grief can also stir up homesickness and expat loneliness, even if you'd felt settled before. It can unsettle your sense of where you belong, a question the page on identity and belonging explores.

What helps when you're grieving abroad?

Nothing takes the pain away, and grief doesn't need to be solved. Some things can make it a little easier to carry:

• Tell at least one person where you live. A manager, a neighbour or a friend. Being known to be grieving is less lonely than hiding it.
• Keep a link with the people who are mourning too. A regular call with a sibling or cousin lets you remember the person together.
• Give the day a shape. A photograph, a lamp, a meal they cooked. Small rituals can hold what a funeral would have held.
• Expect the hard moments. Anniversaries, festivals and your first trip home often bring grief back in full.
• Let practical help count. Taking compassionate leave, eating properly and sleeping are part of grieving, not a distraction from it.

The grief and loss resources list trusted organisations and reading, including support you can reach from abroad.

How does grief counselling online help?

Person-centred counselling doesn't move you through stages or set a timetable. It offers a steady place to talk about the person who died, about how they died, and about what it's like to grieve so far away.

In practice, that might include:

• Telling the story. Including the phone call, the flight you didn't take, the funeral you watched on a screen.
• Talking about the person. Who they were to you, not only how they died.
• Making room for guilt and anger. Without rushing to reassure you out of them.
• Finding your own ways to mark the loss. Rituals you keep, adapt or create.

You don't have to wait until someone has died. Some people start counselling while a parent is seriously ill at home, living with the fear of every late-night call.

If you're in the UK, Cruse Bereavement Support runs a free helpline on 0808 808 1677. It's open on weekdays: 9.30am to 5pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and 1pm to 8pm on Tuesdays.

When to get other or urgent help

Grief can slide into depression, especially when you're isolated. If your mood has stayed low for weeks, the page on low mood abroad explains when to see a doctor. If your grief feels unbearable, or you have thoughts of ending your life, please get help now:

• UK: call 999 or go to A&E. For urgent help that isn't an emergency, call NHS 111 and choose the mental health option. Samaritans are free on 116 123, 24 hours a day.
• EU: call 112.
• Sri Lanka: the National Institute of Mental Health runs the National Mental Health Helpline on 1926.
• Elsewhere: the helplines directory lists verified numbers by country.

Related reading

• Life transitions, on the changes a loss can set in motion.
• How to find a therapist abroad, if you'd rather find support locally.
• Online therapy for expats, on sessions across time zones.

I'm a trainee person-centred counsellor and BACP student member, working under supervision. You can book a session whenever you feel ready.