February 14, 2026
The following is excerpted from a piece by Edy Nathan MA, LCSWR, which appeared in “Psychology Today.”
A Valentine’s Day Tribute to Grief
By Edy Nathan MA, LSCWR
The empty chair is not merely an absence—it’s a presence. It holds a shape, an imprint of what was and it symbolizes the missing piece of your life. It’s a place at the table or the home office desk, or the car where your partner or spouse sat and chatted with you. The empty chair serves as a container, a vessel for memories and memoirs, holding the essence of what has been lost yet lingers.
Though Valentine’s Day is devoted to love, the empty chair is felt most in the small, unexpected moments—when a memory surfaces, and the absence of your loved one takes hold. The emotions grip you tightly, making you want to escape from what they represent while, paradoxically, making you long to hold onto them at the same time.
The way pain is revealed by grief, the time it takes away from life, makes time feel unrelentingly long, as it seems to move slowly, unbearable, as it gives space for anxiety or numbness to creep in without warning. Anxiety can be piercing, a sharp reminder of how much your heart hurts. And with it often comes the unsettling sensation that you can’t catch your breath. But this isn’t the someone-took-my-breath-away kind of breathlessness; it’s the kind where your breathing feels unnatural, out of sync.
The best way to navigate this overwhelming sensation is to take a deep breath, hold it for as long as you can, and then release it. In doing so, you remind both your body and mind that if you can hold your breath, you are breathing. And sometimes, that simple truth is enough to carry you through.
As regulated as you want to feel, the love you carry within for what you have lost, doesn’t disappear with the turning of a calendar page. And grief, at times, takes on the role of being a bit like a bully because it doesn’t conform to time’s linear path. Instead, it comes in and leaves, in idiosyncratic ways, within the unconscious and conscious realms where longing, grief, and remembrance converge.
***
Sign Up for Healing Journey Messages
Receive a daily message to your email address.