Does anyone actually overcome the death of someone really close mother or father. I was 14 and my mother got sick with cancer, everything went like a lightning past my eyes, it happened so fast. Doctors found out too late and she was already in stage 4 cancer, given maximum 2 months to live. All days felt like a big mess to me. I had to move out of the country to live with my father. My father never lived together with my mother, he moved away to another country shortly after i was born. She got diagnosed with cancer in september 2022, by october 2022 i was already living in another country and on 17th november she passed away. I flew back to my country for funeral but didn't go. I thought i couldn't handle it, i would break down immediately seeing her in casket just laying there lifeless...
It's been 4 years, i just freshly turned 18 living whole new life in different country. But still something is bothering me, it catches me at random times, the feeling that i won't be able to survive rest of my life without her. I had good relationship with her, but i wasn't the brightest kid. I would get in troubles, yell at her, be mad at her, and i still feel bad i couldn't say sorry about it, this will haunt me forever.

I am very happy she isn't suffering anymore.. but i am suffering now.

So many people say they are here for me.. but she isn't, so i feel helpless and lonely.

So many people say she would be so proud of me... but ill never hear words " im proud of you " from her again.

Tbh i don't know if ill be able to live without her forever.

I’m sure people will automatically think I’m greedy or selfish but maybe hear me out. I’m a 31F and my dad passed away 2 months ago. I was the favorite (it was always the joke in the family), the daddy’s girl, and the youngest. I have a 41 yr old sister who has an 8 year old. My dad has been chronically ill basically my whole life. Stage 4 cancer when I was in middle school, quadruple by pass surgery when I was in high school, and countless scares, ER/ICU visits, ect after that up until the day he died. Because of that, my dad and I have had many conversations about death, his wishes, and his will. My parents separated when I was 10 and he has had a gf since then and they married each other 4 years ago so she could be buried with him in the veterans cemetery and all of that one day. I think it was to make sure she got all the money now too…

My dad was very successful and is an example of “from rags to riches”. He owned his own business and made sure his family lived an amazing life unlike he had growing up. Were we rich? No, but we were definitely comfortable. Even after my parents separated he still helped my mom and took care of us. He wasn’t the type of man to just drop his entire family and start a new one. He got a new wife but we are that family that still spends all holidays and everything together even though both my mom and dad have moved on to different people. I’ve been very lucky to have that dynamic.

My whole adult life my dad has told me that me, my mom, and sister would be getting around $50,000 each if/when he passes from his life insurance policy and from the business he owns. I would tell him to stop talking about that stuff with me because at the end of the day I want my dad, not his money. I have my own money and I’m successful myself. I won’t lie though, it was reassuring to know that my dad still wanted to take care of me when he passed one day, but I was never sitting here blowing my own money and banking on his life insurance lol. He even told me 2 years ago to make sure I get a prenup if my bf and I get married because I had a lot of money coming towards me one day.

My step mom is the fakest person in the world. She acts like she loves me to my face but I hear from people that she constantly talks shit about me and thinks I’m a spoiled bitch even though I haven’t asked my parents for a dime since I was like 23. She hates my sister too. She created a lot of distance between me and my dad and now it’s all starting to come together in my head as to why. My dad didn’t even love her. He called my mom 2 months before he passed saying he’s divorcing her LOL.

Well, a month ago my sister received stuff in the mail from MassMutual regarding the life insurance…because my dad left $300,000 to my step mom and my 8 year old nephew to split. Nothing for me or my sister. I honestly can’t even put into words how heartbroken I am on top of already grieving the loss of my dad. It’s not even about the physical money. I wouldn’t have even touched it. It’s the fact that my dad actually let someone (my evil step mom) talk him out of leaving us anything and actually did it after telling us all these years you’ll be taken care of by me even when I’m not here.

I know my dad. I know he wanted to take care of all of us, his wife included. But this feels like the biggest F U from both him and my step mom, because they obviously made this choice together. And I have to live with knowing he did that for the rest of my life. It just would have been nice to do a big thing one day like buy a house or get married and be able to use the money and feel like he was apart of it in some way. Now there’s nothing and there will never be that feeling of gratitude. Does that make sense? Am I being ridiculous and selfish? I of course want my nephew to be taken care of but I’m sorry, I just don’t think an 8 year old needed to be left $150,000 when he has 2 stable daughters.

I dont even want to talk to my step mom. She keeps asking me when I’m going to come over and go through his stuff but I just can’t face her knowing she had something to do with this. I can’t be fake right now. I honestly would be fine never speaking to her again my entire life and I have felt like that even when my dad was alive. I would never take legal action or even have a conversation with her about this because she has no empathy, no emotional depth, and is the definition of a narcissist. I dealt with her because that was the only way I’d get to be with my dad. It just really hurts and I feel like I’m mad at my dad when I should be healing and taking care of myself.

I have seen families divided over money after a death and I never wanted that. I’m not that person. My dad didn’t raise me to be like that. But how do I find peace within myself and move forward in life? I don’t even know what I’m looking for if you read all of this. I’m just hurt, I miss my dad, I’m mad, and I’m scared of life without him. I needed to vent.

Im 19 and after working a shitty fast food job the past 2 years I finally managed to land a well paying professional job. I can finally start making the money I need to move out of my moms house. Things have been looking up for me relatively, and I know my dad would be proud of me. I am just so fucking pissed that he isn’t here to tell me how proud he is. Every steppingstone will be without my dad for the rest of my life and I will never get used to it. There will be greater moments to come, none of which will include him. It’s shitty and I hate that I cant bring him back.

What is the point if you?

It suddenly dawned on me the other day that I have been coping with grief these past 11 years. They have been a long dark road, a long spiral downward

I have seen my social circle collapse in on itself. That circle was due to my late partner. She was the social butterfly. To cope with her loss, I adopted a routine to get me through the day, weeks and months. They turned into years without me knowing it, seemingly. And the fact I have a milestone birthday coming up soon highlited the passage of time for me. I feel the urge to break out of this self-imposed straightjacket and taste something new of life, without ever being free of the memory of my loss. That I will carry with me to my grave.

Dad had dementia and elderly onset diabetes. We didnt realise his agression and anger were dementia,I was often quite impatient and irritated with him, over the last 3 years.

All that changed when he went to a nursing home for the last 8 months of his life(we just couldnt manage). He got very good care but he gave up and visibly declined. I didnt want him there. I was heartbroken to see my stubborn feisty headstrong father,who argued and fought us, be like this. I saw him as much as I could and wept buckets about hin, over these last 8 months. I was with him when he died. I cant forgive myself for the previous years. I wish I had understood better what was going on.

I recently had a friend pass due to car accident. Young early 30s like myself. And it’s actually my first loss of a close friend or family. Between it being my first loss and it being a close friend I obviously am not taking it well. It’s been about a month and in comparison to how i have notice others accept death im nowhere near. They seem to handle it really well and i am having the hardest time functioning and being quote on quote normal. I’ve had decent days but as soon as i think im coming to terms with it i get hit with a huge wave. I woke up so anxious the other day I was physically sick, vomiting, etc. I read somewhere else that they had a harder time with the death of an unexpected tragic loss of a friend or partner, sibling etc who was younger in comparison to maybe a grandparent that they knew would pass before them. Is that common because i cannot shake the concept of someone you just expected to do life with so young losing their life so randomly. Idk how to readjust to a new reality because it’s all i think about. Real life feels like background noise. Grief is truly an insane feeling

TW suicide mentions

My best friend, I don't wanna use her real name so let's say Margaret (she'd find that hilarious), took her life during 2024 summer by jumping under a train. I found out because I took a train, the same route, same day, just an hour later. We had to be moved to a bus replacement service due to an "event on the train tracks". And the bus drove by the tracks, where a bloodied train stood by a red tent. She was only 16.

After her passing, I stayed in contact with her mom so she could give me the where and when of Margaret's funeral. And a couple days ago, I agreed to visit their house for the first time. Where Margaret lived, slept, ate, bathed, breathed, existed... I still have so many complicated and paradoxical feelings. It felt surreal, to say the least.

Her mom's an angel. She gave a couple books, 2 mugs, 2 plushies that once belonged to Margaret and loaded my bag with pounds of food. Her sister, who is much older, was there too.

Margaret took her life because a psychopath of a man broke her heart that day, but she loved him. As she was walking to the tracks, she was sending him voice mails, telling him what she's about to do. All he said in response was "don't die pls". He had over 30 minutes to call for help.

As much respect and love I have for Margaret's mom and sister, they made me listen to these voicemails. In the last couple ones, you can hear the train blasting it's horn. I could hear the desperation and pure agony in her voice. I could hear her telling that psycho she loves him and always will seconds before the train hit her. I could hear her saying how alone she feels.

I thought this visit would be healing for me in a way, maybe help me accept the fact she's really gone forever. But all it did was make me more miserable. I still see it, the red tent, right in front of me every time I close my eyes. And now I can hear the train horn as well, which is a detail I didn't ask for.

Her mom also talked about the autopsy, the police investigation, she showed me all evidence, including pictures of bruises on Margaret's body left by said psycho. And I can't decide if I should be thankful. On one hand, it was kind of (?) comforting to learn she died instantly upon impact and 99% wasn't in any pain. On the other, I now have to live with the knowledge of what was left in those last voicemails. I don't know if I'll ever visit them again, as much as I'd like to.

I miss you Margaret, always in my heart and deeper in my soul.

PS I apologize if this is written all over the place, English isn't my mother tongue.

With mod approval:

I have created a subreddit for widows and widowers over 60 who would like the support of their age community.

r/WidowedOver60

I wish we got our happy ending. Thank you for being my only friend when we met in HS the biggest love of my life for nearly half of my life.

Please read my petition for moms and dads to be able to get unkept vacant lots in the city of Detroit and trim them into Legacy Lots in honor of their child who was lost tragically in Detroit! This will do two things..it will help parents to healing knowing they have somewhere to beautify and create a safe space…second it will help others in that community to enjoy, gardening, flower beds, painting and community events, please sign this is a Great Cause ..I’m a grieving mom I list my only child my son Mickale!

https://c.org/R9kwZDgPdL

People mean well, especially people who have never lost anyone close to them, but if I say I don't want visitors, that should be the end of the discussion.

Instead, I have a friend who keeps trying to invite herself to my house from the other side of the country. We haven't seen each other in three years and I'm completely fine with that. She still has both of her parents and even a grandparent, so she has absolutely no clue what this kind of grief is like. And even if she did lose them all, my grief is unique to me because no one had a relationship with my mom like I did.

Some days I'm okay. Other days the grief hits me out of nowhere and I want to be alone. Not distracted. Not cheered up. Not entertained. Alone.

I understand some people want company when they're struggling. I am not one of those people. The idea of having a houseguest when a grief wave hits makes me sick. I don't want to have to entertain someone, make plans, be "on," or worry about someone else's feelings while I'm trying to survive my own.

What exhausts me is that people act like my boundaries are suggestions. They keep pushing because they think a visit would be good for me (when it’s really for them!), as if they know what I need better than I do.

Honestly, my mother's death has shown me how selfish most people really are. A lot of people say they're helping, but what they're really doing is trying to make themselves feel better. If someone tells you they don't want visitors, respect that. Grief is hard enough without having to defend your right to be left alone.

When my stepdad died in 2022 i was the first one in my friend group to lose a parent (i was 30 at the time). The reactions have been devastating. You would think that people would call when something like this happens - but all i got were whatsapp messages. It was brutal and it has changed many friendships and ended some.

I have a close friend who seems to be very overwhelmed with things like this and I try to be understanding. But this year my grandma declined rapidly and i took care of her until she died in June. It was incredibly hard because we had a very close bond. Said friend texted me how strong i was for being by her side etc pp, but when i eventually texted her that my grandma died, she texted back, offering to reach out if I wanted to talk. That's it. No card, no flowers, no visit, even if we live in the same small town.

A few days later I visited her and she only gave me a short hug (she isnt a tight hugger) - later she at least gave me a quick tighter hug. It was a nice afternoon, we talked a lot about her life and her baby (6 months) and it was a nice distraction for me. A few days later she finally visited me and we sat in the living room, i had served some cake and all and eventually i started crying because of my grief. She just sat there and asked "What do you normally do when you're sad like this?" and I was so confused. I said "well i cry until i stop or i journal or so...". It felt humiliating, sitting there crying, a close friend not even coming over to hug you while i you try to make the crying stop because the situation is so uncomfortable.

I know that she is overwhelmed, but at this point i am tired. I know i could simply talk to her and tell her what I need, but I have been asking people for support very explicitly in the past and got told that I was too much and had too many problems - even my own mum said that to me after my stepdad had died - so I have stopped expressing my needs and just started to build up walls.

We did have nice moments since all of this happened and i can appreciate our friendship for what it is, but it somehow it also feels hollow since I have started to hide my true feelings.

How understanding do we have to be towards people being overwhelmed with our grief? And how much can it be expected from us that we express our needs at all times? I honestly can't find an answer.

October 8th I got the worst phone call of my life. It was my sister telling me that Dad was gone. 58 years old. Just completely incomprehensible and I don’t know what to do from here. Mom is being helpful and I’ve been overwhelmed by people reaching out expressing condolences but I just feel completely alone and broken. He was a good person…kind, gentle and compassionate. I struggle looking around at people because I just wanna scream “my Dad died, why don’t you feel the way I do?”…which doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense. Funeral is on Sunday. I can’t eat, can’t sleep. I just don’t know where to go from here.

10/14/2026

The empty feeling I feel is easy to explain.
I don’t live in this feeling and I’m able to go about my day as if I’m in whole and not in many scattered pieces, until all but suddenly I’m struck with a feeling of grief from the top most hair on my head to the dirt on the bottom of my feet. And then I’m paralyzed. I start to smell things that teleport me into a time and space that I existed in before, only then, when I existed in these times originally, did I not ever truly appreciate the times at all— which brings on a whole new layer grief.

It’s over, it’s really over.
I tell myself over and over again.
Knowing that somewhere in the back of my dark cobweb filled corridors of my mind there’s a room where a little light is flickering, a little light that flickers like the little light of hope I still carry inside that one day you will get a divorce, or better yet; you end the engagement early, and we finally get a second chance.

It’s been almost 2 years now since we broke up.
A lot of the legal shit over my DUI are still unresolved.
Nonetheless, you found somebody you decided you’d like to spend eternity with.

I’m teleported again to December 1, 2022.
Talking with you about our own engagement, why didn’t I see it coming?

I back up, turn around, and keep on keeping on, I guess.

I’m lost , everyday is filled with constant reminders I will never see you again, after a lifetime together as friends and as lovers , as soulmates , great moments and mistakes, inside jokes, our own personal language, I always feared this but never knew it would come so soon and while we were not old but not young either, nobody has been there for me since you died, nobody even acknowledges it, if feels like a lie when I have to tell people , I’m lost and I just hope when it’s my time to leave this world that your the first person I see on the other side . I live and miss you beyond measure

My Ty Ty I’m laying here with  my sisters cats  just cuddling . they’re laying on top of me how cute is that 

it feels so wholesome

But  anyway .  

Quite the update huh ?

so my sister yelled my name from outside one day and to my surprise it was a lil boy cat on here lap we later named him jet clover . As she said with a jolly smile 

“you needed this “

and so it was  

then came along October a lil baby girl cat 

she had scooped up a couple days later . Because A couple days prior She had been pining over how “creepy cute “ she was 

as she would call it . 

. So decisions were made and oh how cute of a  duo they made . They also just lit up together. You would  absolutely love them they’re so Full of energy and have such cute personalities already. 

I could almost hear you coming up with cute nicknames off the top of your head  and see you’re reassuring  smile meet mine .

As I lay here I’m reading through our old messages  back from 2020 when we were just getting to know each other 

with a heavy heart the messages hurt so bad but they also are very warming in a way . 

questions and thoughts With no answers plague me 

How am I to Face this reality that is not made up of we ,nor us ?

The moment I lost you time has eluded me in ways that make absolutely no sense 

As if my fabric of reality is all distorted and tarnished beyond dismay 

nothing has ever been this hard before nor this confusing . There’s this type of loneliness I can’t fathom that has moved in permanently into the Corredor’s of my mind.

I just miss you more than I could’ve ever imagined and I struggle to cope with it day in and day out and in every moment that passes im still stuck breathing 

In air that doesn’t feel like mine it 

still makes no sense to me that 

This is Is real I miss your encouraging words and reminders to stay in the present like how you would say something like “Don’t forget to pet your kitties “.

I’ll be stuck with this pain forever but I know it’s not the end of my Journey . 

I have so much to be thankful for and family that cares . 

 I know in my heart you wouldn’t want me to dwell and be stuck in this forever. You would want me to face the beautiful sun and drink all of its hydrating rays  .

but it just doesn’t seem to make it any easier I miss you. 

And I’ve never felt so lonely,

The Future is so unclear like a desert haze I meant it when I said I would love you forever.  

I promise you I will keep on keeping on for you and for me and so that I may be happy again .  I am beyond thankful to have crossed paths in entwined with yours to have loved you and be loved by you. you always be a part of me and I will always I’ll thrive to love like you so that I can share a part of who you were with the world. Because I couldn’t imagine not Have been graced by your light love and kindness . 

if your close friend lost somebody recently and is grieving, what should you say to them that actually makes them feel supported and understood?

We say alot ...ohh man...he was looking depressed...he was sad... soo bad..but when that person is alive ... nobody gives a damn ..they just use the others and ignore everybody like a object....

People judges you...take advantage of you... nobody give damn....when person dies eventually everybody becomes so compassionate...

Few people are exceptions but they are so rare ...

I realised this ... recently when i saw the news of one walter jr actor who died by suicide....

At the moment, my dad is dealing with Neuro endocrine prostate cancer, which is incurable. Now we are in a situation where he is currently receiving chemotherapy three days in a row every three weeks. He seems to be relatively responding to treatment, but he’s tired and clearly visibly ill. The nature of the illness will be terminal eventually and I’ve been dealing with the loss of him as my dad in the way that he was before and understanding that he will never return to that person and it’s only a matter of time.

I had a really hard week a couple weeks ago, where it seemed like the end was near if I’m honest and I was venting about it to my friends. Now I’m fairly comfortable with speaking about death frankly. I said something along the lines of he might not make it to Thanksgiving or Christmas and I was venting about it in a very matter of fact way and quite honestly like I had already gone through my meltdown and that was about eight hours of crying in one day and I just didn’t have it in me anymore to talk about it like in a sad way at that point like now I kind of feel a bit numb.

Anyways, since I sent these voice notes to the group chat, one of the people that used to message me a lot has not responded in that group chat since then and has not read any of my messages that I sent to her and has obviously been avoiding me, and I am just a bit disappointed.

Maybe it seemed weird that I was talking about my dad‘s death so casually, but I had already gone through so much in the days before that and I think it’s healthy to talk about death.

I am sad that they’re seemingly not really talking to me anymore especially because a few days before I had told them that I’m getting married and they were super excited for me and said they would be coming. That’s happening pretty soon and then I’m gonna go home afterwards and surprise my dad with this because he’s desperate for good news. (I live abroad away from them).

She also has some other stuff going on with her home life and she has like pretty bad depression herself and she did disclose this to me and like a couple of times she went offline because she was super depressed and then she came back and was like oh sorry you know I’ve just been depressed and I haven’t been online so I reached out to her just to ask her if she was okay because she disclosed to me that she self harmed previously so I just wanted to check up on her, but she hasn’t responded and I think it maybe has to do with how I very seemingly casually mentioned my dad dying and I’m not really sure how to feel about it. Maybe not but it just seems like it wouldn’t be a coincidence that she stopped talking to me after I was talking about my dad that time.

I’m not going to chase her because if she doesn’t want to talk to me anymore and if that’s like too much for her then that’s her problem but it’s disappointing.

I’m still feeling how I felt after the death of my grandparents even though my dad is still alive for the moment but it feels fucking awful and I guess it’s just too much to talk about. The distance my friends have kept since this vent is noticeable…

As humans we are told that we only need 6 months to process grief, for me it’s been 1 year and 5 months and I still haven’t come close to even accepting that my mom died. These past few weeks I’ve been struggling with what is real and what is not, in the sense that i cant distinguish if the emotions i’m feeling is grief or just me remembering her. Obviously thinking about her makes me sad, because her dying is a sad thing but is that grief or just sadness linked to the memory? By definition (aka according to Google) Grief is the natural emotional, physical, and psychological response to a significant loss, but how does that feel? How do I know that the feeling I’m feeling right now is grief? Personally I do have a problem with distinguishing between my emotions just because I feel like that I can never properly categorize them according to the standard if that makes sense.
What made me write this is that I recently watched the documentary ‘Dear Zachary’( I recommend that you watch it immediately if you haven’t yet) and I was in tears the entire time. I truly believe that the definition of grief will never ever be able to do justice in describing how it feels to lose someone significant. It not only changes you psychologically, emotionally and physically, it changes the entire trajectory of your life. I would find myself having to remind myself how to breathe, how to think and even how to cognitively process things. This documentary was the only visual representation of grief that I’ve seen since she died. It shows the person was exactly that, a person. Someone who had an entire life and someone who had all these connections with other people. it ‘s so hard for me to grasp that one day they could be there and the next they are gone. Like their physical presence just got removed from existing amongst us. We are conditioned to believe that this is just a natural thing and maybe it is scientifically, and I know that we all have to die but how is it just natural for us to be expected to just move on. If you take away the physicality were they ever even here? All we have are memories that will eventually fade and objects that we place a lot of value on but what I need is to physically hear her say something to me. Everyone around me just repeats the phrase “she loved you” and i hundred percent believe that she did but does she now? She can’t love me now because she’s not here. I believe that we are more than just our physical bodies, I believe that our souls are so important but most importantly I believe in science. How do I stop believing in science, because maybe if I stop believing I would be able to believe that she loves me now. I admire religious people for being able to just wholeheartedly believe in someone that’s not physically, because that’s the one thing I wished I could do. When I close my eyes and talk to her it just feels like I’m gaslighting myself or that I’m being silly but in retrospect I’m just a daughter trying to speak to her mom in the only way that she knows how to.
We are conditioned as a society to lead with logic,sense and strategically but I feel like as humans we are born to lead with emotions, whether we realise it or not. It’s impossible to remove emotions from our day-to-day life and I believe that, that in itself is how we differ from AI. We live our lives based on our emotions and this concept I call Emotality (I made up this word btw). I formulated the definition as the realization that we as humans are inherently emotional and base and live our lives off of that fact. And simultaneously we realize that after our eventual passing the only thing that impactively remains is our emotions, the actions/consequences of our emotions and what emotions we triggered from others. I believe that the majority of people don’t have emotality, thus expecting people to move on from grief after a few months instead of acknowledging how that loss, how experiencing an emotion, grief has the ability and most likely will change their lives.
Before my mother died I was ambitious, positive and in some form innocent, now I look for ambition in others and I am only a shell of the girl I once was. When she left she took every positive emotion she triggered in me during her life and left me groveling to find alternatives, but how do i find alternatives for something i cant even touch or name. Who am I without grief, but also without her? Because those two things can’t exist in one reality. Either I have no grief and I have my mom or I don’t have my mom but I live with grief. So I think that I should rather ask who I am with grief. How do I navigate my future while still actively being crippled by the feeling of intense loss? I will never get over this and i dont think that i should have to, because we are not robots that can just change the settings of our feelings. The more i think about it the more i think about it the more i realize that me still experiencing grief indicates the significant impact she had in my life, how much i loved her and vice versa but also that she was real. And that makes the constant pain of missing her worth it. I don’t know the direction of my life but I know that grief will remain a constant part of it and I ironically couldn’t be happier about that

I lost my dad 10 years ago and my mom 3 months ago. I forgot what fresh grief feels like. It's so different this time around. I'm the one who has to settle all my mom's affairs. I'm so stressed out with everything on my to do list. My friends were great at first, but now I feel like they're just back to talking about their normal lives and they come to me with random little issues they're having and I feel bad, but I just don't really fucking care! I'm sitting there listening to friends who I love drone on and on about inconsequential shit and the whole time in my head I'm like I watched my mom take her very last breath. I don't really give a shit about anything you're saying right now.

I used to think grief meant slowly healing until one day, you’re finally okay again. But now, I’m starting to think that maybe that’s not how it works.

My dad passed away recently, and I’m realizing that life really does go on, even when a part of you feels like it shouldn’t. People go back to work, laugh at jokes, make plans, eat their meals, and carry on with their lives. And you do, too. You find yourself laughing at something, enjoying a moment, or going about your day, then suddenly remember that the person you want to tell about it is no longer here.

I think that’s one of the strangest things about grief. You can be okay for a moment, but that doesn’t mean you’re okay with what happened. You can accept that someone is gone without ever being okay with the fact that they’re gone.

And maybe that’s what makes grief so difficult. There’s no actual finish line. No day when you wake up and suddenly stop missing them. You just learn to carry the absence, even as life continues to ask things of you.

I don’t want to rush myself into healing, either. If this pain stays with me for a long time, then so be it. I don’t want to measure my healing by how quickly I can go back to being the person I was before. That person had my dad in his life. Of course I’m going to be different now.

Maybe someday, the pain will feel different. Maybe some memories will make me smile more than they make me cry. But for now, I think it’s okay to not be okay.

I’m curious about those who have lost someone they deeply love. Does grief ever really get easier, or do you just become better at carrying it? And how do you learn to live a life that you still want to enjoy, even when there’s someone you wish could still be here to enjoy it with you?

I lost my mom on April 28, 2024. I was 29. I know that I’m an adult but I need my mom. She had been sick since I was like 8. She went into congestive heart failure when I was about 12 m, and I spent most of my middle school years taking care of her. Feeding her, giving her medications, giving her insulin shots, bathing her…I was just a kid but I did the best I could taking care of her…although she never asked me to. I did it because I loved my mom even though our relationship was broken. I stopped talking to her from age 17-21ish…because we had a difference of opinion and she invited me to leave her home. So I did. But I ALWAYS loved my mom. When she came searching for me she was a different mom. She was open to new ideas and ready to listen and understand me. We became best friends…I talked to her EVERY SINGLE DAY after that…for hours on end…around anyone. She was an amazing person and I am so glad that I got to experience that side of her.
Anyway…I think that I may be on the spectrum (pending testing) and I rely heavily on my sense of smell. Like everyone has a scent profile in my mental file cabinet…along with other things in their files…but because I haven’t actively smelled my mom in a couple years…ai feel like I’m forgetting what she smelled like…and that is fucking me up right now grief wise. I’m mainly okay for the most part (not bursting into tears every time I think of her) now and I am functioning better than I ever have mentally. Like I just went back to school right after she passed away and graduated in May of this year…and I am going to start working toward my Bachelors in Biology in January of next year…but today the grief is breaking me down…I can’t do anything but lay here and cry. I don’t really expect any responses to this…nor do I expect anyone to really read it but I think just typing this out helped me a lot.

I hate when people wish me because i know nobody is excited about it i feel excited about people bdays make them cards and stuff everyone has their life only. I hate bringing a cake for myself because my mom force me too .Person that could have made it special was my dad nd he left me three years back nd bdays are just another grieving day for me to remember that he isnt here!!