09/06/2026
This beautiful piece by Dee Murray, founder of Menopause Experts Group, really stopped me in my tracks today.
When we think about grief, we often think about bereavement. I've certainly experienced that with the loss of both my parents. But grief can also show up in quieter, less obvious ways.
As I approach my 50th birthday, I've found myself reflecting on many different losses and changes. Stepping away from my nursing career after 20 years, even though it was absolutely the right decision. Watching my boys grow from energetic little children into independent teenagers and young adults who need me in very different ways. Realising that more of my life may now be behind me than ahead of me. Not in a morbid sense, but in a way that naturally invites reflection.
At the same time, I feel excited about what comes next. New opportunities, new challenges, and new chapters.
Perhaps that's what midlife teaches us so well: that endings and beginnings often arrive hand in hand.
Dee captures this beautifully. If you're navigating change, loss, uncertainty, or simply finding your feet in a new season of life, I think her words may resonate with you too.
(Shared with permission and full credit to Dee Murray, founder of Menopause Experts Group.)
"Grief Doesn’t Always Wear Black!
Sometimes grief is obvious; someone dies. Or a relationship ends, perhaps a diagnosis arrives.
People understand why you’re hurting. But some grief is much harder to explain. It’s the grief that sits quietly in the background. The type that nobody else sees. It doesn’t come with sympathy cards, flowers or time off work.
Grief isn’t always about death. It can be the grief of a mother whose child is transgender. Not because she doesn’t love or support them, but because change can bring complicated emotions. Two things can be true at once. You can love someone completely and still need time to process a future that looks different from the one you once imagined.
It can be the grief of a marriage ending after decades together. It can be the grief of losing a family pet who greeted you every morning and sat beside you through life’s ups and downs. Perhaps redundancy, retirement, selling a business, moving away from a community you love, or watching friendships slowly drift apart.
Sometimes it is the loss of who we thought we were going to be. And for many women, menopause can bring its own sense of loss.
We don’t often talk about that.
For some women, menopause can bring feelings around fertility and the end of the possibility of having children. For others, it can be about ageing, changing roles within the family, children growing up and becoming independent, retirement approaching, or simply the feeling that one chapter of life has closed and another has begun.
That doesn’t mean life is over. Far from it.
But change, even positive change, can still involve grief.
What makes grief so difficult is that it doesn’t follow rules. You might cry every day, in-fact you might not cry at all.
You might feel angry, withdrawn, exhausted or disconnected or may find yourself avoiding social events, struggling to concentrate at work, feeling unusually emotional, or wondering why you no longer feel quite like yourself.
Many women tell me they feel guilty for their feelings. They tell themselves they should be grateful and others have it worse.
But grief isn’t a competition.
Loss is loss. And what hurts one person may not affect another in the same way.
When menopause arrives alongside other life events, the emotional load can become even heavier. Many women in midlife are supporting ageing parents whilst still caring for children. Some are going through divorce or bereavement. Others are facing health concerns, financial pressures, career changes or uncertainty about what comes next.
As Licensed Menopause Champions, we often find that conversations rarely stay focused on symptoms alone.
What starts as a discussion about menopause can become a conversation about a husband who has died, a parent with dementia, a child who has left home, a business that has failed, a dream that never happened, or simply a woman trying to work out who she is now.
Sometimes the most valuable thing we can offer isn’t advice. It’s listening not fixing. Definitely not judging or rushing somebody through their feelings. Because grief has no timetable. It doesn’t arrive neatly and leave when we would like it to. It comes and goes. It changes shape. It catches us by surprise.
But one thing I have learned is this:
Grief is not a sign of weakness.
It is a sign that something mattered.
And if menopause teaches us anything, it is that every ending also carries the possibility of a new beginning. Sometimes we just need a little support whilst we find our way there."
menopauseexperts.com
