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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Laurie Kellman,Dmytro Zhyhinas and Melanie Lidman

Missing loved ones leave those left behind with 'ambiguous loss' — a form of frozen grief

Texas Floods-The Missing - (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Rachel Ganz's husband might be alive. But he might not be. More than three months after he was last seen near the Eleven Point River in Missouri amid severe flooding and evacuation orders, Jon Ganz is just ... missing.

That leaves Rachel, 45, in a limbo of sorrow and frustration, awakening “every morning to a reality I don't want to exist in.” She dwells there in a liminal state, she wrote by email July 11, with a stream of questions running through her head: “Is he trapped by debris in the river? Is he in a tangled mass of debris on the riverbank? Did he wander off into the forested area instead?” And one that remains stubbornly unanswered: “Are they ever going to find him?”

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