You've felt it in the middle of dinner — a wave of sadness, sudden and sourceless, when the person sitting across from you is perfectly fine.
You've felt it driving home after a visit, watching them get smaller in the rearview mirror. You've felt it at 2am, doing math you don't want to do.
That feeling has a name. It's called anticipatory grief. And the fact that you're feeling it is not a sign that something is wrong with you.
It's a sign that you love someone.
"Grief is the price of love. And the anticipation of loss is, in its own way, a form of love."
— David Kessler, Finding MeaningMost people carry this alone. There is no ritual for it. No bereavement leave. No casserole on the porch. The world doesn't know how to hold a grief that hasn't officially "happened" yet — and so it tends not to hold it at all.
This guide was made for that in-between place. The threshold. The long, tender season of loving someone you are also, quietly, learning to lose.
You do not need to prove that your grief is valid to be here. If you love someone, and you can feel time moving, that is enough.
Each week includes a short teaching on what you're experiencing, a body-based practice, a journal prompt, and something specific you can do right now — while there is still time.
Body-based tools that work with your nervous system, not against it. Simple enough for a hard night.
Questions that help you listen to yourself — with space on the page to actually answer them.
Not toxic positivity. Honest anchors to return to when the grief brain tells you otherwise.
The books, podcasts, and apps I recommend most — selected for depth and accessibility.
This guide draws from the After the Fall™ method and from the somatic and trauma-informed work of leading grief researchers — including Pauline Boss on ambiguous and anticipatory loss, Mary-Frances O'Connor on the neuroscience of grief, and David Kessler on meaning-making before and after loss.
It is shaped by more than two decades of experience holding group spaces with care — and by the personal experience of losing three people in a single year, and learning to grieve in the middle of living.
It is not therapy. It is not a crisis line. It is a companion — for the long, often lonely middle that most grief resources don't touch.
"You may find that what you feared the most turns out to be bearable. Not because it is small — but because you are larger than you knew."
— After the Fall™In 2024, Chivonne Monaghan lost three significant men in her life within a single year — a former partner, her father, and her stepfather. Each loss arrived differently. None of them hurt any less.
She had spent over two decades working in personal development, wellness, and trauma-aware facilitation. And grief still undid her.
In trying to find her footing, she did what most of us do: therapy, grief groups, books, podcasts. Each helped her take the next step. And she still needed more.
So she built it. After the Fall™ is the program she needed and couldn't find. This free guide is the beginning of that work — offered to anyone who is quietly grieving someone who is still here.
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