This deeply oversimplifies the complexities of life, the deepest tragedies, emotional pain. To lose something so beautiful, and to know it is gone, forever. That is grief that lasts a lifetime. It is a burden oneself must make appear to lighten over time, but, some types of sadness go into one's own core, every fiber and every root of one's own being.
A broken spirit, heart, soul. Through a reminder in the present, the slightest twinge of it trickles through, in the form of a memory, a connection leading to every interwoven emotion. It can be a kind of sadness that feels as though it never mends.
This is not the sort of thing to cover up with pleasantries for the benefit of others. The memory of being completely and totally disconnected from a most defining connections in one's own life - that is a type of suffering everyone can experience, and a kind of suffering everyone should have a deep respect for. It's not just nostalgia, because nostalgia comes back in waves, the attempt to bring back what is lost. Sometimes this works. But the death of a loving, shaping parent, or loss of connection to one's essential culture - that is something that, nothing fills that void entirely. There has to be respect for this. Everyone should have respect for this type of loss.