Maybe grave misfortune, suffering loss of identity (6)
I believe the answer is:
accent
'maybe grave' is the definition.
(grave accent is an accent mark - eg in French)
'misfortune suffering loss of identity' is the wordplay.
'misfortune' becomes 'accident' (accident is a kind of misfortune).
'suffering loss of' suggests deleting specific letters.
'identity' becomes 'id' (I've seen this in other clues).
'accident' with 'id' taken out is 'ACCENT'.
(Other definitions for accent that I've seen before include "Distinctive way of talking" , "Distinctive manner of speaking" , "Mark used to indecate pronunciation" , "Speech pattern" , "Stress - regional dialect" .)