Grief, The Last of Us, and What it Means to Keep Going
Most of us, at some point in our lives, will lose someone we love. Grief is one of those universal experiences — painful, disorienting, and deeply human. As a therapist, it’s an honor to sit with clients in their grief. But it’s also hard. When someone is grieving, you’re witnessing some of the most raw parts of their inner world — their sorrow, their memories, their regrets, and ultimately, their love.
As Danish therapist, Helené Grau Kristensen puts it, our relationship with the person who “no longer is breathing” changes — but it doesn’t disappear. That belief has always stayed with me. There’s so much pressure to “move on” or “get over it,” but that kind of thinking often makes grief lonelier than it already is. I want to talk about how we can relate to grief differently — how remembering and carrying our loved ones with us can be healing.
And strangely enough, a recent example of this came from watching HBO’s The Last of Us — a show set in a post-apocalyptic world that’s also, surprisingly, a story about grief in all its forms.
Ellie’s story reflects what a lot of us would recognize as “typical” grief. She goes through sudden, traumatic losses — especially the death of Joel, who had become like a father to her. Afterward, she’s there, but she’s not really there. She says and does what’s expected, but emotionally, she’s shut down. This is common after trauma — it’s how the nervous system helps us survive when something feels too big to process.
Then there’s Abby. Her grief looks different — angrier, louder, more intense. Joel killed her father, and when we meet her, she’s consumed by a need for revenge. Her pain is tangled up in rage and justice, which is what we might call “complicated grief.” It disrupts everything — her sense of self, her relationships, her ability to move forward. It’s not quiet. It’s not polished. And it’s a reminder that grief doesn’t always show up as sadness. Sometimes it burns.
And then we have Joel. Joel lost his daughter, and years later, he carries that loss like a scar — always there, but not always visible. His relationship with Ellie brings new purpose into his life, but when that’s shaken, he experiences another kind of grief — what we call “secondary loss.” It’s not just the person we lose, but everything that went with them: the future we imagined, the role we played, the part of our identity that made sense because of them. Joel doesn’t just lose Ellie; he loses who he thought he was — a dad, a protector, someone who mattered.
Watching these characters unfold on screen reminded me of something simple but powerful: grief isn’t one thing. It’s not neat. It doesn’t follow a timeline. It can be numb, explosive, quiet, or ongoing. And whatever form it takes, it deserves space.
If you're grieving, I want you to know this — you don’t have to rush through it. You don’t have to forget. Sometimes healing looks like remembering. Sometimes, it’s just about figuring out how to carry the love forward.
Kathleen Byrne, MA, EdS, MEd, PCLC
References
Hedtke, L., & Kristensen, H. G. (2018). Still alive : Counselling conversations with parents whose child has died during or soon after pregnancy. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, (1), 22–30.
https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.477201784929223