There are other kinds of grief, variations that are even less universally understood or acknowledged. One of these is ambiguous grief, which can feel just as cloudy as its name suggests.Adding insult to injury, the person suffering from ambiguous grief might not even be aware that it’s an actual thing, let alone something they’re struggling with.

When I was young, my father used to tell me that “the principal purpose of the human body is to keep one’s head from rolling around on the ground.” We were not an athletic family. Ping pong was my parents’ sport of choice.

Inside, I’m still the mother of three children, the mother of a daughter, the mother of a child with a rare disease. But my outsides don’t match my insides. If all these things defined me, who am I now? Have I reverted to who I was before Dalia was born? I barely recognize that carefree person.

We’re supposed to be grateful. Research shows that gratitude can enhance both our physical and emotional health, improve our self-esteem, and make us happier overall. It can help us sleep better, too. Yet how can we give thanks for what we have when we’re in anguish about who we don’t have?

I’m guessing you’ve never heard of my daughter’s illness. I’d never heard of it either, until that snowy day, 12 years ago, when my husband, my father and I squeezed into a geneticist’s tiny office and he broke the news that would forever split our lives into a “before” and “after.”