Migratory Grief: The Grief We Don’t Talk About When Living Abroad
Somehow, life brought you abroad.
Maybe it was a decision you had dreamed about for years, or maybe circumstances brought you somewhere you never imagined living. Either way, you started building a life away from home. From the outside, everything may seem fine. But is it?
Do you sometimes experience a sense of emptiness, sorrow, or loneliness that is difficult to explain? Maybe you have adapted in many ways yet still feel that you do not completely belong. You may miss your family and friends, but also things that are harder to name—the language around you, familiar streets, food, humour, traditions, or simply the feeling of being somewhere you do not have to explain yourself.
These experiences can be connected to migratory grief, a term used to describe the grief and losses that can accompany migration.
Migratory Grief: Grief Is Not Only About Death
When we hear the word grief, we often think of losing someone through death. But grief can also emerge in response to other meaningful losses. Sometimes, we grieve what is still there but is no longer part of our everyday lives.
When you live far from home, these losses can be difficult to name. You may not be grieving the loss of your parents, but you may be grieving not being there as they grow older. Maybe you notice new wrinkles on your mother’s face each time you visit or realize that your father’s hair has become greyer since the last time you saw him.
You may grieve the moments you could not be part of—the weddings you watched through a screen, birthdays celebrated without you, family dinners you only heard about afterward, or children in your family who seem to have grown several years between visits.
Sometimes the losses are even quieter:
not being able to drop by someone’s house, having coffee with an old friend without planning it weeks in advance, hearing your language everywhere around you, or participating in the ordinary routines that once gave you a sense of familiarity and belonging.
Nothing has necessarily been “lost” in the traditional sense, and yet something has changed. The people you love are still there. Your home country is still there. But your relationship with them is different because you are no longer physically present in the same way.
This is part of what we can understand as migratory grief.
Research describes migratory grief as involving multiple kinds of loss associated with leaving one place and establishing life in another. Related to this is cultural bereavement, which helps us understand the experience of losing everyday access to familiar cultural practices, language, social structures, and a sense of cultural belonging.
If This Feels Familiar, You Are Not Alone
One of the difficult parts of migratory grief is not always knowing that you are grieving. You might judge yourself: I should be used to living here by now. You might wonder why you
feel sad after returning from a visit home or why holidays and celebrations suddenly make you emotional. You may even question why you are struggling when moving abroad was something you chose.
These feelings don't necessarily mean you have failed to adapt or that you are incapable of
belonging in your new home. You can build a sense of belonging in one place while still
grieving what you miss in another. Both experiences can exist at the same time.
Sometimes, simply having a name for what we are experiencing can make a difference. When we recognize these feelings as potentially connected to migratory grief, we can begin to understand where they may be coming from. With understanding comes an opportunity to validate our emotions rather than judge them.
And with awareness, we can begin to offer ourselves more compassion.
Making Space for Both Homes
There may not be a way to replace everything you miss—and perhaps that is not the goal.
Instead, you can find ways to stay connected to the parts of yourself and your culture that
continue to matter to you. Speaking your first language, cooking familiar food, maintaining
traditions, celebrating cultural holidays, listening to music from home, or connecting with people who understand your experience can all help preserve meaningful connections.
At the same time, building relationships, traditions, and routines where you live now can create new forms of belonging without requiring you to leave your previous identity behind.
There may also be times when this grief becomes heavier. If sadness, guilt, loneliness, or
disconnection begins affecting your daily life, counselling can provide a space to explore what you are carrying. The goal does not have to be simply to “adapt better,” but to understand your losses, your changing identity, and what belonging means to you now.
Moving forward does not have to mean leaving everything behind. Sometimes, it means
learning how to carry home with you while creating a sense of home somewhere new.
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