Frequently Asked Questions
What is Miss You Already about?
Miss You Already: Living and Loving Through Anticipatory Grief is a compassionate, practical guide to understanding grief that begins before a death or final loss. The book explores the emotional impact of serious illness, aging, caregiving, changing relationships, uncertain futures, and other experiences that can create anticipatory grief while a loved one is still present.
Through personal stories, clinical insight, reflection questions, and practical tools, the book helps readers name what they are experiencing and feel less alone.
What is anticipatory grief?
Anticipatory grief is the emotional response that can occur when a person anticipates or fears a future loss. It may begin after a serious diagnosis, during the progression of dementia, while caring for an aging parent, or when a relationship or familiar way of life changes.
A person experiencing anticipatory grief may feel sadness, anxiety, anger, guilt, numbness, exhaustion, or even moments of relief. These emotions can feel confusing because the actual loss has not happened, but life has already begun to change.
Who should read Miss You Already?
This book is for anyone navigating grief, uncertainty, or change. It may be especially helpful for:
Family caregivers
Adult children of aging parents
People supporting someone with a serious illness
Spouses and partners facing a loved one’s diagnosis
Friends who want to offer meaningful support
Therapists, counselors, healthcare professionals, hospice workers, and faith leaders
Is this book only about grief related to death?
No. Although Miss You Already addresses grief related to illness, caregiving, aging, and the possibility of death, anticipatory grief can also appear in non-death losses.
Readers may experience anticipatory grief during divorce, estrangement, infertility, relocation, retirement, a career transition, the loss of independence, or a significant change in identity or family life.
The common thread is grieving what is changing, disappearing, or no longer unfolding as expected.
Can you grieve someone who is still alive?
Yes. It is possible to deeply love someone and grieve the changes occurring in their health, personality, abilities, independence, or relationship with you.
This is especially common when a loved one has dementia, a chronic illness, a terminal diagnosis, or a condition that changes how they communicate or participate in the relationship.
Grieving someone who is still alive does not mean you have given up on them. It means you are responding to a real and meaningful change.
Does the book address caregiver burnout?
Yes. Miss You Already explores the emotional and physical demands of caregiving, including exhaustion, hypervigilance, resentment, guilt, isolation, and the pressure to remain strong.
The book encourages caregivers to recognize their own needs, establish sustainable boundaries, ask for support, and make room for rest without viewing self-care as abandonment.
Caring for yourself is not separate from caregiving. It is part of making caregiving more sustainable.
“I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for writing it and for so generously sharing your journey. What you have created is truly a gift. I honestly didn’t expect to read the entire book in just a few hours, but once I started, I couldn’t put it down. Every chapter drew me in, and I found myself reflecting, feeling, and seeing parts of my own journey in your words.”
What makes Miss You Already different from other grief books
Many grief books focus primarily on what happens after a death. Miss You Already focuses on the complicated period before a loss.
It addresses the experience of loving someone who is still here while also grieving changes that are already taking place. The book does not ask readers to choose between hope and grief. It makes room for both.
The book combines emotional validation, practical strategies, clinical insight, and personal storytelling to help readers feel understood and supported.
Is this book useful for healthcare, hospice, and faith professionals??
Yes. Healthcare professionals (nurses, physicians, care teams) hospice teams, social workers, chaplains, clergy members, and other helping professionals may find the book useful when supporting individuals and families through serious illness and changing family roles.
The book can help professionals better understand the emotional experience that may exist alongside medical decision-making, caregiving responsibilities, faith questions, and end-of-life planning
What will I take away from the book?
Readers will gain language for an experience that is often difficult to explain. They will also learn ways to care for themselves, communicate more openly, manage uncertainty, make meaningful use of the present, and recognize that anticipatory grief is real.
The central message of the book is that you do not have to wait until a loss occurs to acknowledge your grief—and you do not have to carry it alone.
