What It Means to Grieve From a Distance

Stella Igweamaka on losing her father in Nigeria while building a life in Edmonton

Stella is a Nigerian-Canadian writer and researcher based in Edmonton, Alberta. She holds an MBA from the University of Lagos and has been featured on CBC News for her work on the experiences of Black Canadian women. In December 2024, just after marking a personal milestone, she received a WhatsApp call from Nigeria telling her that her father was gone. She could not travel. She could not sit beside her family. She could not take part in the rituals that make loss feel real.

What she did instead was write about it. What follows is her account of what it means to carry grief in a country that does not know what you have left behind.

In December 2024, I learned what it meant to grieve from a distance. It happened just after I had celebrated a milestone that should have marked a turning point in my life. I remember standing in my kitchen afterward, the quiet settling in, feeling proud and hopeful. And then the call came. On WhatsApp. A voice from Nigeria telling me that my dad was gone.

I was not prepared for a voice from far away telling me that someone I loved was gone. I gripped my phone, trying to listen, while my mind rushed ahead to everything I would not be able to do. I could not travel. I would not sit beside my family. I would not take part in the rituals that make loss feel real. I would grieve from here in Edmonton, which is oceans away from Nigeria.

This kind of grief didn't come with a holiday dish at the door or arms wrapped tightly around me. It showed up in quiet sadness, while the world around echoed loudly with celebration.

For many newcomers and immigrants, December has a way of reminding us of where we are not. We don't talk about this enough. The Christmas and holiday season carries a particular heaviness. Everywhere you turn, there are conversations about going home, about flights booked months in advance, family reunions planned days ahead, traditions dusted off and repeated. But for some of us, home is far away. I was mourning home and also mourning who made home, home.

When newcomers arrive in a new country, much of the focus is on settling in: finding work, building stability, supporting loved ones back home. Rarely do we stop to consider who might be left behind over time. Years pass quietly. Five years turn into ten. And then one morning, you wake up to the news that someone you loved, someone you assumed you would see again, is gone. Just like that.

In those moments, you begin to question everything. The choice to leave. The life you are building. Whether one form of progress must always come at the cost of another. Loss does not wait for paperwork to be approved or savings accounts to grow. It does not pause because flights are expensive or because you have exhausted your vacation days. When someone you love dies back home, grief crosses borders effortlessly, even when you cannot.

During the holidays, that ache sharpens. Christmas songs play in grocery stores. Lights flicker everywhere. People ask casually, are you going home this year? And you smile politely, offering a shortened version of the truth. You say, not this time, instead of explaining the cost of airfare, immigration limits, or the responsibilities that tether you where you are.

So, you carry your grief quietly.

Many immigrants absorb grief in fragments. A familiar dish cooked on Christmas Eve, even if no one else knows its significance. A whispered prayer said in a language that feels safer than English when your heart is breaking. Occasional phone calls with siblings or cousins when time zones allow. But nothing quite replaces being there in person.

Grief from a distance is often lonely, not because there are no people around, but because few understand the layered weight of it. There is the sadness of loss, yes, but also the guilt of not being present. The gratitude for the opportunity mixed with the pain of separation. The constant negotiation between survival and sorrow.

And yet, somehow, life continues. You go to work. You respond to emails. You show up to gatherings when you can. You learn to carry grief alongside responsibility, not because it is easy, but because you have no other choice.

If you are grieving from a distance, I want you to know that your grief counts. It is not smaller because you are not there. Love does not weaken with distance, and neither does loss. Grieving from a distance is not a failure of belonging. It is proof that love travels too, stubbornly, across borders and time zones and years.

Originally published on BellaNaija, January 2026, and on CBC. Republished on Beyond Borders Stories with the author's permission.

[Read the original on BellaNaija] (link: https://www.bellanaija.com/2026/01/stella-igweamaka-what-it-means-to-grieve-from-a-distance)