I'm so sorry for your loss. It's difficult for anyone and particularly if you're in such a position and really need your therapist and your therapy.

I've wondered about signs in my life too. Sometimes, I think it's our way of trying to make sense of things that are too painful or otherwise overwhelming to us. We need to have our version of why it happened and know that there is a reason for it. A reason involving us and the greater good, perhaps. I ddon't actually believe in signs, though, and I think you can benefit from therapy now more than ever, because beside the issues which brought you to therapy in the first place, now there is also this loss. It's normal to feel pain - emotional pain, perhaps even physical or spiritual, whatever you might experience about this loss will come and it's normal in this time of grieving, but you don't have to do it alone.

I know it may feel like you don't want to go on and work with a new therapist for a lot of possible reasons. Yes, it is hard to start building trust again in somebody new. Nine months sounds like perhaps you were just done building a lot of trust, and now you therapist is gone and you're faced with starting all over again. But I don't think you're starting on the same level as before. Now you are left with having experienced a healing relationship in which you really felt understood and helped. That is what your former therapist left you and that is an experience you didn't have when you started with her nine months ago. You're not going blind now, you know you can be understood and helped, you know there are people who care, people you can trust.

My only advice is to be always in contact with yourself, keep checking with yourself what pace you need to go at. This loss takes time and needs the space to express it. Give yourself that time. Whatever you may be feeling - sadness, discouragement, maybe even other emotions such as anger or something else - know that it's okay and allow yourself that time and space, perhaps in a new therapeutic relationship. I trust you and a new therapist (whether the one you're seeing now or another one) will manage to build a safe therapeutic relationship again.

Perhaps my main advice is not to give up on therapy now. If, months or a year down the line, you feel like you don't need therapy, it's your decision to make of course. It always is. Times of grief are just so blurred due to the pain of the loss and it's not a good moment for decision-making.

I wish you the best in your therapy journey