I Lost My Purpose First: Grieving Before Anything New

Neal Tricarico · July 1, 2026 · 7 min read

Before you can find a new purpose after your child dies, you have to name and grieve the specific purpose you already lost. Because the purpose of being their parent was not a small thing. It was the architecture of your life. And until you let yourself feel that it is gone, nothing real can take its place.

TL;DR

Everyone wants you to find a new purpose after the loss. The truth is you have to name the old one first. For me, that purpose was being the father of my son Anthony, and when he died by suicide, that purpose died with him. This is not the story of the new purpose that came later. This is the story of what it felt like to sit in the empty space where my purpose used to be, before anything new could grow.

Why grieve the old purpose before chasing a new one?

People mean well. They say things like "you will find meaning in this" or "he would want you to keep going." I know their hearts are in the right place. But before any of that can be real, you have to name what you lost, and that is harder than anyone tells you.

I did not lose only my son. I lost the person I was because of him. I was the father of Anthony. That role was not a side project or a chapter in a larger book. It was the whole book. Every morning I woke up, I was his father. Every decision I made, his face was somewhere in it. When he died, the role did not just get put on pause. It ended. And I was left standing in the ruins of an identity that no longer had a person on the other end of it.

What exactly was lost?

People talk about losing a child and they picture the empty chair at the dinner table. That is real and that is terrible. But there is a second loss underneath it. You lose all the small, daily things that gave your days shape and direction. Coaching his team. Picking him up. The phone call on the way home. The way you knew what you were supposed to do because you were his father and that answered every question.

I lost my purpose. Not in some abstract philosophical way. I lost the actual, concrete reason I got out of bed in the morning. The thing that told me who I was and what I was doing here. Research on meaning reconstruction after loss describes this as the collapse of the assumptive world, the internal map that tells you what life is and who you are in it Meaning Reconstruction and the Experience of Loss - APA. My map had one road on it, and that road was fatherhood. When the road ended, I did not know how to walk anywhere else. I have written before about what finding a way forward after suicide loss actually looks like, and the short version is that it starts with small deliberate steps, not a single conversion.

Why can it never be replaced?

Here is the part that is uncomfortable to say, but it is true. The purpose of fathering Anthony cannot be replaced by fathering someone else. It cannot be replaced by a mission or a cause or a new direction. It was specific to that one person and that one relationship. The love was not a generic love that could be transferred. It was Anthony's love, shaped by Anthony's life, expressed in the specific thousand small ways I showed up for him.

I think this is the thing people are really afraid to tell you. That some losses are irreplaceable. Not "for now." Not "until you find something new." Permanently. And holding that without running from it is one of the hardest things a person can do. The National Institute of Mental Health notes that the aftermath of trauma often involves a prolonged period of disorientation, and that recovery begins with acknowledging what has been lost rather than minimizing it Coping With Traumatic Events - NIMH. The acknowledgment is the work, not the shortcut around it.

How does naming the loss free you to move?

When I finally stopped trying to find the next thing and just let myself feel the absence of the old thing, something shifted. It was not better. It was not lighter. But it was real. I could say out loud: I lost my purpose. I am the father of a son who died. That role was everything to me. And now it is gone.

Naming it did not make the loss smaller. It made the loss something I could hold instead of something that was holding me down. I was no longer pretending I still had a job to do. I was grieving the job itself. That grief was heavy, but it was also honest. And there is a relief in honesty that nothing else can give you.

The framework of post-traumatic growth would later give me language for what was happening, but at this stage I did not have language. I just had the bare fact: my purpose was gone, I felt it, and I was still breathing Posttraumatic Growth Resource Center.

What comes after you grieve the purpose?

I do not have a clean answer to give you here, because I am writing this from inside the question, not from the other side of it. What I can tell you is that the space you make by grieving the old purpose honestly is the only ground something new can ever grow on. It is empty ground. It is cold and it is quiet. But it is real.

What came later for me was a destiny I never asked for, built from exactly what the loss taught. But that is a different story. This story is the one that has to come first: the sitting still, the naming what is gone, the refusal to pretend it was less than it was. If you are in that place right now, you are not behind. You are exactly where you need to be. The new thing cannot arrive until the old thing has been fully grieved. And grieving it is not a failure. It is the work.

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention connects loss survivors to others who have walked this road, and for me, finding people who understood the specific weight of suicide loss was part of what made the sitting bearable AFSP Suicide Loss Resources.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you find purpose after a child dies?

You do not find it the way you find your keys. For most people, purpose after loss is not something you go out and grab. It is something that slowly takes shape as you stop running from the pain. It emerges from telling the truth about what happened and letting other people see you in it.

Why do you feel so lost?

Because a child is not just a person you love. A child is an entire future you have already lived inside your head. When that future disappears, your brain does not have a replacement map. Feeling lost is not a sign that something is wrong with you. It is a sign that something enormous has been taken, and your mind is still trying to orient itself without it.

Is it okay to not have a new purpose yet?

Yes. More than okay. It is necessary. The pressure to find a new purpose can become its own kind of weight, and if you pick it up too soon, you are carrying two things instead of one. Let the old purpose be grieved first. The new one will come when the ground is ready, not when someone else's timeline says it should.

Sources cited in this analysis?

If you are in crisis, call or text 988. The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7/365, free and confidential.