A new color of grief
Early this year, my friend died. The shock that comes with finding out someone has passed is one thing. It is a completely different thing if you knew the person, conversed with them, and shared a meal, a laugh, or even a hug goodbye. What I am still trying to wrap my head around is losing someone you barely knew.
My friend and I met on the iInternet, where 99 percent of our friendship lived on. In 2024, I received a very unexpected LinkedIn connection invite from an editor. At that time, I had just graduated from university with a single dream: to be a writer. You can imagine how stoked I was to message her. With little to no background in writing, I sent the longest, over-explaining message to her—expecting her not to reply. To my utmost surprise, she did.
I sent her pitches. She gave me feedback. I sent her drafts. She gave me more feedback. And today, one of my most favorite, honest, and arguably best pieces lives to see the light of day. It is called “Why social media has turned my life into a rat race.”
I will never forget the feeling of seeing her message: “Hi Noelle. Your article is up. Congratulations.” I sobbed. A dream come true, and only the beginning.
Hello, then goodbye
Since that piece came out, I wrote more and more. She carried all my pitches and ideas as if they were her own. I was able to get more writing opportunities and eventually, copywriting and design work, too.
We kept in touch through it all—even planning lunches for when she planned to come back home (she was pursuing a post-graduate degree abroad). It was a friendship I could not keep quiet about. All my friends knew that she was more to me than an internet connection.
In January earlier this year, I was walking towards the famous Boracay inasal restaurant for dinner. As I approached our table, this woman stood up in front of me and said, “Are you Noelle?!” I realized then and there that this was her. The girl who took a chance on me.
Goodness. I gave her a big hug and turned to my partner. “This is her! My editor!” I was screaming like a teenage girl reuniting with a best friend. I thanked her for everything. I swear I could have cried, but it was my first time meeting her in person. We parted ways soon after. I was so happy.
That was the first and last time I ever saw her.
A week later, I sent in a new pitch, only to be told that she had passed away. Disbelief is an understatement. I was heartbroken. I attended her wake—knew absolutely no one—and sobbed in the front now. This was my first personal loss: someone I knew and loved on my own accord. Connected with her all on my own. Lost her the same, all on my own.
For many months, I have been battling this color of grief. Thoughts of “I didn’t even know her that well. Why do I feel this pain so deeply?” continue to wreak havoc in my mind. I felt so entitled to an explanation, but had no one to ask. We didn’t even have a photo together.
I have always anticipated loss as a part of life. Inevitable. But I did not think I would have to struggle with validating myself for feeling it. How does one deal with grief that appears baseless? What makes grief okay? The depth of a relationship? The length?
But the heart doesn’t work that way.
What it means to grieve
Connection isn’t measured in quantity. And neither is loss.
I think that sometimes, we try to quantify grief because we want it to make sense. We want to be able to explain it—to justify the heaviness. But grief isn’t logical. It’s emotional. It doesn’t show up when it’s convenient. It doesn’t wait for its turn. It just arrives and asks to be felt.
I have spent months trying to file this feeling away into neater, smaller shapes. But to feel deeply is not a weakness. It’s not an overreaction. It’s not embarrassing or exaggerated. It’s being human. And if we deny ourselves the right to grieve, we deny ourselves the right to be fully alive.
For me, all grief is valid. Whether you lost a friend or a future, a loved one or a version of yourself, you’re allowed to sit with that pain. You don’t have to earn it. You don’t have to explain it. You just have to let it be. What matters most is that you listen to it. Let it name itself. Let it take up space.
Over the past few months, I’ve tried to do that. I’ve turned the feeling over again and again, hoping to make sense of it. And while I don’t have all the answers, I’ve arrived at one simple truth: Grief, in all its shapes, textures, and hues, exists. And all of it is real.
It’s okay to grieve for something small. It’s okay to grieve for something complicated. It’s okay to grieve even if you can’t quite explain why. Because it is real, and that is what makes it enough.
