Coping with bereavement at university

By Avesta Afshari-Mehr

Content warning: this article contains mentions of death, which may be triggering to some readers. Discretion is advised.

In honour of my dear friends who all left this world too young.

We all inevitably face the loss of a loved one; a friend; colleague. But we rarely expect it to happen at this age, not whilst at university, and certainly not a fellow classmate – as we are at a time when life is just supposed to be beginning.

Last academic year, three of my friends died within the span of a few months. Even now, writing those words feels unreal, like I’m describing someone else’s life. There is a surreal dissonance that grief brings – the world continues at its usual pace, unaffected by the passing away of a friend, while yours has quietly fractured. People still rush between lectures; cafés still buzz with chatter; deadlines still approach. The world doesn’t realise that three cherished and loved people will never be seen again. And yet, something inside you has shifted permanently, as though a thread holding everything together has quietly snapped.

There is a surreal dissonance that grief brings

I remember the first time I walked past a certain quiet Durham street that reminded me of one of them after they were gone. My chest tightened so suddenly that I stopped mid-step. It felt as though the air had thickened, as though breathing required effort. It wasn’t dramatic; there were no tears at first. Just a heavy, silent pressure. I kept walking because that’s what you do. You keep walking because the world expects it, because the rest of the world doesn’t pause for grief, because the person next to you in the queue for coffee has no idea that you’re trying not to break.

Grief at university is particularly strange because it is so invisible, sitting in workshops and tutorials discussing problems, all while carrying something enormous and wordless inside you. Your peers might see you as quiet, distracted, or distant, but they don’t see the memories that keep surfacing without warning: be it a phrase someone says; a song playing faintly from a nearby room; a familiar street at dusk. Suddenly, you’re not in that moment anymore, and you’re somewhere else, somewhere that no longer exists.

And yet, how do you bring it up? In the middle of a conversation about something trivial: in the middle of a lecture, a joke, a passing comment, how do you suddenly say that my friend is gone forever?

And yet, how do you bring it up?

It’s the small things that hurt the most. The ordinary things. You expect grief to arrive in grand waves, but often it creeps in quietly. You see something they would have laughed at. You read something you want to send them. You watch an Instagram reel and see that they’ve liked or commented on it. And that moment… that tiny, sudden realisation… feels like losing them all over again.

There is also a strange loneliness that accompanies bereavement at university. Many of us are away from home, away from familiar support networks. Friends here care deeply, but they may not know what to say. Sometimes, you don’t know what you want them to say either. Grief is difficult to articulate because it is not one emotion but a shifting constellation of them: ranging from sadness to disbelief to anger to guilt to longing to confusion. One moment you are laughing; the next, hollowness.

Frankly, I have found myself avoiding certain places. Streets I once walked through without thinking now suddenly felt heavy with memory. I slowly began to understand how grief reshapes geography. The world becomes mapped not just by buildings and roads, but rather by absence of people.

And yet, despite the pain, there is something quietly profound about remembering. Grief is painful because love existed. I’ve realised that that tightness in my chest is a testament to connection, to shared moments that mattered. Sometimes, I think of grief as love with nowhere to go: a sort of love that lingers, searching for the person who is no longer there.

Our department professors and college staff often talk about resilience… perseverance; productivity; achievement. But grief doesn’t follow a timetable; doesn’t respect summative deadlines or exam periods. Some days, getting out of bed feels like an accomplishment. Some days, you sit in a lecture and realise you haven’t absorbed a single word. Why even bother going to lectures?

Grief doesn’t follow a timetable

Yet, what I have learned, however slowly and imperfectly, is that coping does not mean forgetting. It does not mean moving on in the sense of leaving them behind. Instead, it means learning to carry them differently. It has meant allowing their memory to exist not only in pain but also in gratitude. It means letting yourself smile when you remember something they said, even if the smile is followed by tears.

If you are grieving at university, know that you are not alone – even if it feels that way. One of my greatest regrets was to bottle it all, thinking my peers won’t understand what I’m going through, and  that no one could relate to the pain and suffering.

But they don’t need to have lost someone to be able to help: just having someone listening to you can often be more than enough. So talk to your friends; your academic advisors; a local you sit next to on the bus. Or simply allow yourself the space to feel what you’re feeling. There is no right way to grieve. There is only your way – and learning, slowly, how to keep walking with it.

Image Credit: Geir Hval via Wikimedia Commons