Can you Miss Someone You Never Knew?

September 24, 2026

When I first embarked on writing The Letter, I knew I was writing about death and the grief that follows loss.

I expected limited sales and limited interest because, let's be honest, grief and death are difficult concepts for adults to grasp—nevertheless, teaching children about them.

We often overlook the need to help children process grief and loss. Depending on their age, we may believe their capacity to understand grief is limited by their ability to understand death.

And this is where my thoughts begin to differ.

I think sometimes we underestimate the power of emotion.

Long before children have the words to tell us what they feel, they feel.

They respond to our emotions. They respond to comfort. They respond to separation, connection, energy, love.

We may say they are simply mirroring our emotions—and maybe there is some truth in that.

But I also believe the heart feels the heart of others.

And that brings me to what I believe is an even bigger part of the conversation when we think about whether young children can experience grief:

The power and spirit of Love.

Before I go any further, let me give you a little background on The Letter.

The Letter is about a young boy named Johnny whose mother passed away after giving birth to him—a narrative the African American maternal community knows far too well.

But the story isn't really about how his mother died.

It's about how Johnny learns to live with her absence while discovering that absence doesn't necessarily mean love is gone.

And what makes Johnny's grief particularly interesting to me is this:

He questions why he even cares.

Why does he miss someone he never met?

When You Miss Someone You Never Got to Know

Children experience grief in ways adults may not always recognize.

They don't always have the words to explain what they're feeling or understand why certain experiences suddenly make them angry, sad, confused, or withdrawn.

Sometimes children grieve people they barely remember—or never had the opportunity to know at all.

That's Johnny.

He doesn't have memories of growing up with his mother.

He doesn't remember her hugs.

He doesn't know what Mother's Day would have felt like with her.

But his heart still knows something is missing.

When his teacher assigns the class a Mother's Day project, all those emotions come rushing to the surface.

Johnny becomes angry and eventually says something that, to me, captures a very real kind of grief:

His mother doesn't even know him.

That thought becomes a major part of his journey.

Because how do you miss someone you never really knew?

How do you love someone you don't remember?

And how do you grieve a relationship you never had the opportunity to experience?

We Don't Only Grieve People. Sometimes We Grieve Possibilities.

And I think this can be true for children and adults.

A child may understand that a parent or loved one has died. But understanding that someone is gone and understanding everything their absence means are not necessarily the same thing.

As we move through life, we see relationships around us.

A friend with their mother.

A classmate with their father.

Someone laughing with their grandparents.

A daughter calling her mother when something wonderful happens.

A son getting advice from his dad.

And sometimes, we aren't only grieving the person we lost.

We are grieving the experiences we imagine we would have had with them.

And that can create space for us to idealize the relationship that never had the opportunity to exist.

If those beliefs are never explored, I believe they can sometimes become barriers to emotional clarity.

If my mother were here, she would understand me.

If my father were here, things would have been different.