I didn’t get to see his last moments, there was a large crowd of family and friends who told us not to cry and aside from my aunt, no one took us away and comforted us. We were children, me and my sister. Thirteen and eleven. I’m sixteen now and some nights are a harder than others. Any media or conversation that mentions cancer, anything about hospital deaths, or just seeing a father-daughter duo make me think of him. Often times my daydreaming at night is my enabler. I remember that I only saw him dead. I wish that they’d pulled us out of school, even if it was only a few minutes, for me I’d have my peace. I never got to say that I was angry, angry at him for being sick, for not liking me, not being more present, for making everyone forget how terrible he was just because he was dying now, but I still had to remember and he was still terrible. I love him though, even when I hate him. He was my dad and he’ll always be the one I went on boba runs with, the one who blew my nose for me, and brought me to get barbecue late at night. I’m just so angry and I have no one to go to, everyone seems to have moved on and I’m stuck in my grief. I’ll always be the child he didn’t favor, and that won’t change, even now I’m a loser while my sister my sister is the prettier, taller, more athletic one who’s thin and has no body hair. She’s the popular cheerleader and is already working at 14. I feel like I’ve failed and there is nothing left for me in life. I can’t move on, I hate him and I’ve never stopped feeling guilty for that and yet loving him at the same time makes me sick because how can I love someone who never once looked my way until he was dying. I feel angry and mad and I want to ask god why but I’ve never believed in a good that meddles so I don’t expect much.

My boyfriend passed away in a tragic way this April. His friends set him up & shot him. I had a really hard time I was blaming myself during this time. I was depressed & I felt that I truly lost someone so special to me. I was devastated for months my heart was shattered. His best friend & gf, me and him used to hang out a lot when he was alive. When he passed I remained close with them. His best friend was telling me about an argument they’ve had the last month he was alive & told me he found out he had sex with this very dirty girl who slept around a lot like just dirty & that my boyfriend was trashing talking his best friend. I was devastated when he told me I couldn’t believe it. In our city, she’s a very known like bucket & I swear I’m not being biased or saying this because I thought this about her before I even knew about this. I can’t believe I found this out after 7 months of him being dead. I feel like everything was a lie. I was with him for 3 years. I feel dirty myself. No one was there for him when he died. I was the one who noticed he was missing. No one wanted to pay for his headstone. I used my scholarship money to pay for it. I’ve been a devoted girlfriend since I’ve met him I just don’t understand. I don’t know what to do or how to feel or how to navigate my feelings. Grief is so complicated & not linear when it was the one of people you loved the most but also one of the people who hurt you the most so it’s random waves of missing them & being upset at them but ultimately hurt bc no matter what they didn’t deserve what happened to them. Can someone give me some advice? & please don’t speak poorly about him regardless and I know his dumb I am but I love him & he died a tragic death and our relationship doesn’t define him as a person although this has hurt me so much

My grandfather passed away in 2016, I grew up with him my mom and aunt (my dad visitied me on the weekends) but my grandpa was always my hero. We had a large immigrant family in America, I was born in America myself, the family came over because the store my grandpa owned kept getting robbed and he eventually was shot. Anyways, this incredible man taught me all I truly believe in, he taught me hard work, he taught me my interests because we would watch basketball together all the time, he taught me how to be selfless, and taught me that love and family was so much more important than all the bullshit in life. But the more I go about life, the more I realize, I’m still so broken from losing him, and still hurt so much; holidays make it more real, but it’s been over 8 years now and I still feel completely broken, I’m strong enough to be able to have a “normal” life but in truth, I’m completely depressed and so sad, I miss him every day so much,no day has ever been the same. I put on a tough face for my mom and aunt and the rest of my family but in truth I’ve been constantly hurting so much and the sadness is just unbearable. I don’t even know the point in writing this, maybe it’s just to put it somewhere in writing to myself to let me know my own feelings, but he was such an amazing man, that lived through so much and was the kindest soul I’ve ever met, and I would do anything in this world to be able to hug him again and hear him say “hola mijo”

My best friend died October 2nd. Since then I have hardly had an appetite, feeling constantly nauseous and dizzy, which is worsened by not eating aswell as other chronic health conditions flared up.

It's been 2 months of feeling like shit mentally and physically, at what point should I go to the doctor? I feel so incompetent

My mom passed away yesterday, a day after thanksgiving. She was perfectly fine on that day then I left and went to take a shift at work so I could have some cash to go on vacation for new years... I come back at 3:30 am and within minutes she was coughing and then she couldn't breathe.. She passed out as the ambulance walked in to take her away and then I drove to the hospital where they told me they did everything they could. She passed there. It's only been a day and I know it's going to be a long and hard road but.. I just feel extremely guilty. She wanted to go see wicked cause she loved the wizard of oz and I kept telling her I didn't want to see it because I don't like musicals.. She always asked me to spend time with her after work because I work a lot and I'd try to do that but in the end I'd just be really tired and tell her I had to rest.. There's just so much.. I got her a puppy for her birthday a few months ago.. She won't even be here to see the cute pics I got done for her. I was going to buy her present black Friday because she wanted an ipad.. To make up for always working I'd spoil her so much. I'd buy her whatever I could afford I knew she would like... Now..idk. I've been crying on and off, my eyes are sore and my cheeks are raw, family has been reaching out but I honestly just want to be left alone. I've lost a lot these past 10 years from my grandma, my uncle, 2 pets and now my mom. I have a younger sister (20) and she suffered from depression and I just know this is extremely hard on her. I'm trying to be strong for her but...I'm struggling myself. I know once I'm done with my mom's funeral I want to leave my city and state all together. I need a change. Id do anything to change back time and do whatever she wanted, no matter how I felt.

I have a lot to say, but at the same time don’t. I really wish his life didn’t have to end the way it did, nor gotten randomly sick with ALS. Watching him die and as he died, a piece of me left with him. I found one his shirts in my laundry basket and I believe it’s the shirt he died in and on the shirt it says “takin it easy” My heart hurts always thinking about the struggles he had to go through in life and to death. And the suffering he endured. I can’t begin to tell people what he experienced because it’s so traumatic and people don’t understand. I’ve felt and still feel so protective over his energy and spirit. I’m just always at a loss of words for his death. It feels so unreal.

Does anybody else also have like very vivid dream of their dead loved ones? Dreams that could be disturbing too? Like, I keep having dream of seeing his corpse, I had a dream I was his mortician suturing his lips, I’ve had dreams where I’m with my whole family and we’re all talking, but he’s like “sleeping” and his mouth is hung open (essentially looked like how he did when he was dying) but in my dream I saw him as “being asleep”.

I have vivid flashbacks (real life scenarios) of when he had a fall and I tried so desperately to pick him up with defeat, and I tried so hard that I actually bruised the top of my thighs. My thighs were both like brown with bruising IDK how I even did that. The pain I felt when he apologized to us (way early on in his illness) when he fell, when family members didn’t treat him right (before his illness), when he begged me to stay home from work this one very day, the actual day he died, the wounds he had.

These scenarios are all so painful to me and I’m reliving them all at once. The emotional distress is just too much. So I stopped what I was doing, and ordered some Taco Bell and am going to watch a movie after writing this. These are just such horrible feelings to feel.

anyone know of any virtual support groups to help cope with anticipatory grief? 🤍

the one palliative care recommended for me I had a hard time connecting with. thank you

Things are weird. Grief is weird.

Yesterday I found out my cousin died, VERY unexpectedly. He was at the lake with family and collapsed and then was just, gone.

Ah

My head has been scrambling to unravel the grief I’ve been feeling after I left my abusive ex.

He is definitely a covert racist, misogynistic, and homophobic bigot with NPD. But his mask was phenomenal. He created an entirely fake reality since the moment I met him.

Untangling that has been hard. And I’ve been tasked to grieve him as though he died. So I’ve been.

And then my cousin actually died.

And it reminded me that my ex didn’t die, because the version of him I saw never existed in the first place. His abuse was a choice he made and then since I was too strong to bend on my morals and self love, he altered his personality again to discarding mode - like I never existed.

Now I’m grieving a part of me that died.

Death is so weird. It just surrounds us and shows up in front of us in so many various ways.

And all of time exists around that moment of death, forever. But we just move on.

One minute, we’re here. The next, we’re gone.

Today was a hard day.

This is my first time posting to Reddit.

I just found one of my cats, jelly, deceased in the tiny corner gap space that the water heater is pushed up against. She went missing a month ago. I smelled a foul odor for the last 2 weeks and couldn’t figure out where it was coming from until tonight when I got a ladder to look in the gap. In no circumstance did I ever think my cat could have been in there. Her body was half decomposed. I feel like I killed her. I found her as a kitten and she was half feral so she never let me hold her much or meowed at me. She never made any noise indicating she was stuck in that gap. Not a peep. I feel absolutely horrible. I rescue cats and have other cats as well and feel like I’m not a safe house for them anymore.

When jelly went missing I looked all over the house except that one spot because in my mind there was no way she could have even gotten her body in there. I wish I had just looked even if I thought it was impossible. I had left the door open accidentally that day so I truly thought she had ran away. I honestly killed her. I’m so sorry jelly. This is worse than being run over by a car. She died slowly and painfully. It says online she probably died in 3-4 days without water. I hope she passed away that quick and didn’t live longer than that trapped and scared in the dark tiny gap. I know accidents happen but I was so neglectful I didn’t look in that one spot.

My brother never calls me (he prefers to text), so when I heard his ringtone, I had a feeling. Our lola hadn’t been doing well this last year and even my dad (her oldest son) felt she wasn’t going to make it to her birthday in January.

I’d last seen my lola last summer; it became an impromptu family reunion, but I traveled mainly for her. I am so lucky, so blessed, to have had her in my life for as long as I did. She was a living saint in our family, and now she’s an actual angel and in peace + rest.

She’ll be buried a country away, but my soul aches for her blessing and gentle, firm grip on the sides of my head as I’d bend down to get forehead kisses from her. I am lucky to be her legacy, her granddaughter, that my life is as magical and blessed because I was loved by her.

If there is someone you love, tell them. Always tell them you love them because you will never know when it’ll be the last time.

My dad had stage 4 melanoma cancer but passed away from chest infection and covid and other complications for almost a month ago.I flew to see him and thought that he was going to be okay because he was going to get treatment that will help prolong his life for another 5 years or so if he’s well and fit enough but sadly it didn’t happen. He was the strongest person that i’ve ever known he fight till the very end.I’m so lost and heart broken. I didn’t think that this will be the last time I will ever see him. First I thought that I was going to be okay and be relieve that he doesn’t have to suffer with pain anymore. But lately I’m just so sad , depressed , angry and confused. I watch him took his last breath in front of me. I think in some ways I’m just in denial that he will be okay and he will get better. I don’t know why but Christmas is coming and it makes me even more sad and angry. Like dad use to call me every year and send us cards and now nothing. My birthday is after Christmas and I don’t feel like I want to celebrate it like I just want to be alone and lock myself in the house and just pretend that it’s just a normal day not my birthday. And with being away from the family kinda sucks and having to deal with the annoying in laws is awful. I just don’t know how to feel. I miss him so much.

No one will love me or care about me the way my mom did ever again. l will never experience that love again and I wish I would’ve been older to appreciate it the way I do now. I’m so broken even if I am fixable even if the damage can be undone it’ll take a long time and no one will stick around for that.I’m only going to get older and people have already lost their sympathy for me. I don’t think they ever had any to begin with. But they’ll care less and I’ll always feel this way. My mama isn’t coming back why can’t I accept that? I just want my mom and I hate this fucking town . I hate this neighborhood . I hate my immediate family my absent family that have made me feel so unworthy of their love so unimportant so unwanted. But just last week I had someone a distant relative that has welcomed me into their home and it’s not enough. Why isn’t it enough? I’ll never be satisfied with anything less than my mom coming back to life. Which is impossible which is ridiculous I’m unrealistic I’m insane. I want to die. Because now I know no matter what others do it’ll never be enough. I’ve waited years for someone to make me aper of their life to check on me when I haven’t came back home at the time I said I was that makes sure I eat I thought when it happened it would be enough but I wasn’t expecting to receive it in the neighborhood I grew up in. Is this sick joke. It feels like a punishment. I don’t want to be here. Don’t make me be here please.

my beloved angel passed away today. I don’t know what to do except cry and think of the fact I won’t see her again. it’s been a few hours and I can’t stop crying and wondering what I am going to do? I have major anxiety and this dog was the only thing that helped I feel so lost and upset

I know not everybody believes in this stuff but I need to know she’s watching after me. I usually never feel her presence and it depresses me. Anybody here get signs from their loved ones? I’d love to hear them

I’m so grateful that I got almost 40 yrs with at least 2 of my grandparents. This was the first yr that I didn’t receive those calls, those hugs, those feelings… I’ve lost a cousin to suicide and one to cancer also within the last year so eventually Thursday night just turned for me. I went from enjoying it and my lady’s family to attempting to figure out why my 5 yr old daughter was giving me kisses to crying outside. Part grief, part midlife crisis, part just a really rough yr and a half that included almost losing a kid and my partner in life. It was a very weird day but I made it so there’s that

This is a long one and sorry for any grammar mistakes, English is my second language.

My father suddenly passed away in summer. Now with christmas coming up, the days get rougher and rougher. Not only because it is the holiday, but because it would have been his birthday at christmas eve.

I have two sisters and we all have partners. There is also my uncle and my grandma on my dads side. Usually my parents, my sisters and I celebrated christmas together, even though my parents seperated when I was 13 (I'm 26 now, 25 when my father has passed). It became a tradition to make a little brunch where the five of us would celebrate my dads birthday and exchange christmas gifts. After that we all went our ways to celebrate individually. Usually I celebrated with my oldest sister (who I call K), my dad and our grandma, sometimes my uncle was there too, and the last times also Ks boyfriend and his parents. It always was a nice little dinner.

This time it will be all different. We all want to get back to usual, maybe step by step, starting next year. But now it is all so fresh and we all don't know how our mood will be on christmas eve.

Speaking for myself, the last two weeks I have extremely sleep deprivation, because I am thinking so much of my dad. I am lucky if I get 3 or 4 hours. My sisters feelings are getting worse and worse coming closer to christmas too.

We all had individual expectations of how to celebrate christmas. K wanted to celebrate with all sisters and their partners, but more like a gaming night. I wanted more to celebrate with my boyfriend alone, but still making the brunch with our mom.

We all didn't really wanted to celebrate with our grandma. One reason is that we don't want to think every Minute of our dad and she that type of person that expresses at every chance how sad our terrible it is or how dad is sad for not being there. We all now that it is terrible, we do not want to hear it every minute. The other reason, that is way more important for me, is, that our grandma has treated us terribly the last months. Tbh it already started when my father was still alive, that she seperated herself from us and then telling us: "Well, I am no part of your family...." Or when we visited for helping her, she told us that she is alone and has nobody who is helping her. Besides that she has friends, my dad visited once a week, we helped when we had time, and a lovely neighbourhood. She also always speaks her mind no matter if it hurts us (bodyshaming, job shaming, etc).

When my dad was in the hospital and went to coma she always expressed that she is the only one that is suffering, and she told us when we were thinking of visiting him at his first day in coma: "You don't have to go, I don't really think he would notice if you were there."

After his death she was looking for someone guilty, said to us: "You don't really seem to grieve so much, right?" And again said that she just has my uncle and no more family. During the months she always said we are no family. We tried to listen to her opinion for the funeral but she didn't really want to engage. She even didn't help us out financially even though only K is working in a well paid job (I am studying, my other sister F has currently no work). But since we weren't able to get and my dads heritage, K had to lay out money. And although she has a job, a funeral is a lot of money. Instead of helping, my grandmother even invited people to the funeral feast who even didn't know my dad what we had to pay for. There was a huge fight because of this.

At the funeral she hugged us and said: "Remember, I will always be your grandma!" After this she went back to old habits.

She even told me that it is better my dad died, because he would have been a care case if he woke up. I can't directly be mad at her because she didn't understand what the doctors said, but I really didn't need to hear this sentence.

There happened sooo much more that would be too long to fit in this Post.

But all in all I am still mad at her and don't want to be with hear at christmas. I think it will be as hard as the funeral.

But again, we somehow tried to include her, so she doesn't feel left out. My sisters proposed to make a brunch with her and my uncle and meet our mom after this, in the evening everyone celebrates the way they want. I told my sisters I don't want to be at the brunch, but would be there with our mom, for about 2 hours. After this I want to celebrate with my boyfriend alone. Everything else would be too many people for me. It will be the first christmas eve with my boyfriend in our 2,5 years relationship. I'm looking forward to it although I wished it would have been under better circumstances.

Today we addressed our grandma who told us, she want to celebrate it like before. Meeting in the afternoon, eating together with open end. We calmly told her our feelings, how rough the situation for euch of us is and that we don't know how we feel when we wake up on christmas eve. But we proposed the idea to make a brunch, because it was a tradition with dad, so we can see each other (I havent told her yet that I would not be there). We also told her that we want to see our mom later and then all of us celebrating the evening how we feel. Instead of showing even a little bit of sympathy she straight on said: "No, I don't want that, I will not do that." And turned to my uncle and said: "We somehow will make it then alone, right [uncles name]" She tried to stick to her plan and said that maybe it is her last christmas, which we are sure is a way to make us feel guilty. All three of us cried when we tried to explain what we are going through right now.

The partners of my sister were also there. The girlfriend of F said, that she would love us to spent time together but that she can understands us sisters how we feel. She even mentioned that she wants to support F and even might not spent christmas with her family, although her grandpa is getting weaker and weaker and will possibly pass soon. She cried saying this too. My grandma then replied in a cold tone: "Yes, your grandpa is the highest priority then." I was unable to say something, but I thought how rude that was to say. This possibly made F's girlfriend also feel guilty for supporting F instead of seeing her family.

My grandma didn't even want to compromise, even if we said that we could meet our mom for brunch and then see our grandma.

We let the topic slide then. During the car ride home me, my sisters and their partners talked again. We were frustrated of how again we somehow tried to tippy tap around our grandma to not hurt her feelings and she simply doesn't care. I think we decided to then let it slide and just don't meet our grandma if she isn't willing to compromise. Maybe we see her at one of the other christmas holidays. We even find a solution how F's girlfriend can celebrate with her grandparents and also celebrate with us. We probably will brunch together and K and her boyfriend will drive her 1 hour in each direction to her grandparents. She will come back in the evening, so F isn't alone.

Sorry for this long post but I think it needed that much context. I always feel bad when I rent about my grandma like that. She lost a child, but it makes me so terrible sad and angry that she doesn't think this loss is for us as hard as for her. I am so angry at how she has treated us and still a part of me feels guilty for not wanting to celebrate with her. But how could I celebrate with someone who behaves like that? How could I let all the things she said to us slide while I have to work through the most horrible event in my life?

I simply don't know what to think anymore.

Thank you for everyone who read to this point, this subreddit helped me a lot the last months. I sent all the love and strength for everyone who lost someone too. ♡

I have been in a relationship since I was 19, I’m 24 now and we have a 3 year old daughter together. When I was 10 i had a crush on this boy, we started dating on and off from 13-15. And then started dating again at 18. Lasted a few months then we called it quits. He cheated on me constantly, said horrible things to me, would be nice one minute then scream at me the next. He reached out to me when my daughter was a few months old and was so pissed I had a baby. We never spoke again.

I was visiting the town I grew up in and I had this overwhelming feeling to look him up, I found out he committed suicide last month. I am in a happy relationship, but I am so distraught over this news. I have always said he was my first love, even though this was a very toxic relationship.

Has anyone else ever experienced this? I honestly thought I hated him and I never thought I would mourn him.

All I can think about is memories from when we were kids, ages 10-12, before we started dating. We use to play outside with a group of our friends. I’d steal his hats and run around. Us and our group of friends would ride our bikes to the gas station, the park or make dumb funny videos. I have to force myself to think of all the bad stuff.

Content warning: negative parental relationship. Potentially triggering to those who were very close to their parents.

My dad died 4 years ago. I found out via a random call from a hospital social worker with little to no context. I don’t know if he asked for me or if they were able to find me through records or what, but I got a call that he was alive at the time but they would be withdrawing support later that evening, essentially just letting me know it was happening I guess. I live many states away so I just thanked them for the call and let them know not to carry this home with them, that we were not close and there was a reason he was alone with no one by his side.

The social worker sounded young. I didn’t want her to go home that night thinking she delivered awful news to a daughter who was losing her dad and wouldn’t be able to get there in time. She said some nice, supportive things and that was that.

I never saw an obituary or anything. I never got any documentation. I’m not even sure what I’d be looking for. He was remarried at the time so I assume she got everything.

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this. It’s been years. He walked out on all his kids when I was very young. Then we had a few years of forced visitations and awkward silence. There was some bad stuff sprinkled in there throughout the years. I watched as several addictions became the time stamps of my formative years.

Then I went many years without seeing him at all. He called me out of the blue one day to say he was getting married. I invited him to my high school graduation and he said it “wasn’t his kind of thing”

I had the same phone number. Still do. I never heard from him again. I got married, had kids. I finally had gone a while without thinking about him when I got the call.

I wasn’t sad then. But I spent so much of my adolescence thinking I would finally feel free once he was dead, and I don’t. In fact, I’m angrier now than I was for the years he was alive and didn’t try to find me. And the fact is that I didn’t actually want a relationship with him at all, so I don’t even know why I’m angry to begin with.

His death makes me so sad for the dad I never had. As my daughter grows up, I find myself bewildered that anyone could just leave a child like that. Loving her is so, so easy and I don’t understand why loving me was so hard.

Objectively I know it isn’t my fault. I’m aware that I was a kid and his responsibility was to work his shit out and be a dad. He likely had his own demons the way he was raised but I’m not willing to forgive that. But I hate that I’m still giving him the time of day.

I don’t want to forgive him but I don’t want to be angry. I want to not think about him at all and live my life. The anger I feel towards him feels like he’s still taking from me even after his death, and all he ever did while he was alive was take.

I’m not sure what I’m even looking for. I feel guilt for grieving someone who didn’t exist, but I also feel alone in that I can’t be sad, either. So many people have lost parents who loved them with their entire souls. If I could flip a coin and trade mine in to get that back for someone else, I would. But how do I exist in a space where missing someone is supposed to be sad, losing a dad is supposed to be earth-shattering, but all I wish is that I could feel the happiness I expected to feel when he was finally gone?

He was one of the most confident care free person I met. He was fearless, I just can’t understand why he did it. We met in primary school and became very good friends. He introduced me to cod zombies, I religiously played zombies because of his influence. I literally got to level 300 odd on BO3.

We stoped hanging around for a while because he was a year above me and went into high school well I was still in primary. Eventually due to unfortunate events we both got kicked out of high school and a few years later I met up with another friend and he was there. He didn’t recognise me at first because of puberty but when the friend who invited me out said who it was he got ecstatic and did as well. We started hanging around a lot again but a lot of drugs were involved and I realised we were all going down a bad path so I stopped going out after having 2 brain bleeds from falling over, drunk and drugged on Xanax.

I guess I feel guilty because I removed myself from that group and I never got to speak to him before he decided to commit sucide. I genuinely love the guy he always had my back, ferocious but loyal. I’ll never forget him. I know deep down he was a good lad. RIP

When does the loss really hit you? My mom passed last Sunday. I cried a lot Sunday-Wednesday. The last couple days I’ve shed a few tears but it almost doesn’t feel real yet. Im afraid it’s going to hit me in a few weeks when it’s time for me to go back to work and that I won’t be able to work again, I’ve already been on FMLA since September due to anxiety related to my moms cancer diagnosis and prognosis. I’ve had a lot of anticipatory grief the last year so idk if I’m all griefed out. I miss my mom, and I think about her a lot, and I do have anxiety thinking about her being gone but it’s not the overwhelming feeling I expected. We were really close and I was her primary support person through this cancer journey, taking her to most of her appointments (all of them the last 9/10 months) so we spent a lot of time together these last year and I saw her get sicker/weaker, more tired and less like my mom each time. I feel relief that she’s no longer suffering and withering away. But when will the relief wear off?

My mom passed away from pancreatic cancer in September. In October, we had a Celebration of Life. For the Celebration, I had 2 large photo collage boards and 1 large portrait of my mom made from a company that customizes products. They are all about 22" x 30". They all say her name, her birthdate and her death date. I don't know what to do with them now. I have limited wall space and I don't necessarily want to always see them. But I spent a lot on the products, so I don't want to throw them away. And it feels disrespectful to get rid of them. Does anyone have any ideas for what to do with them?

It's the early hours of the morning here in the UK.

I've sat in silence now for the best part of 8 hours.

In bed, under the covers, complete darkness, just crying.

Everytime I think I might be making progress on all the loss, an event or memory creeps up and floors me.

It's my birthday in 20 days. I won't be doing anything for it.

Two days ago I said I was grateful to be here, grateful to be alive...but I know I didn't really mean that.

Grief stripped me down. It brought all the sadness and pain that had been bottled up for decades. I had no resilience to stress or any form of emotion that could be deemed negative. I've tried really hard these last couple of years to triumph over it all, even to the point of delusion.

But my birthday? It's unravelled it all.

I feel invisible. No one has made space or thought of me. And for just once it would be nice to have someone step up and plan something for me - just because they appreciate me.

They would have.

I really just don't want to navigate any more years with this heavy weight.

I feel like my brain, heart and soul are decaying. I might as well be invisible.

I just want the pain to go away.

My sister's husband died yesterday in a traffic collision. We are going through the motions with police.

I am in another country and will be travelling to see them this week.

She is in her thirties and is now a widow with young children.

He was a good person. They were the sort of couple that were already an old married couple when they met in their teens. They were destined for another 40 years together.

We are all so heartbroken for her.

What can I do? What can we do?

My brother passed this year in February and I always thought I could handle death well but we where so close and best friends. But I’ve developed this weird “ I don’t wanna get close to anyone ever again because they will die and I will hafto experience this pain again” behavior Has anyone else experienced and how do you handle it

TW : substance abuse

My mom passed away 12/16/23 from a fentanyl overdose. I thought I had everything under control. I was freshly 18 at the time. I returned to school the following week and took 4 days off of work before returning there. I was going “well” i thought. Of course nights hit me hard and I cried til I couldn’t anymore. Certain songs made me cry the instant I heard them. But i was okay. I was still doing all the things I would normally do. Now for the past 3 months I started having panic attacks. The panic attacks themselves have subsided but now i feel like i’m not connected to reality. My vision is distorted, loud noises make me cringe and leaving the house seems almost impossible unless it’s to go to the doctor. I had a breakdown in my FIRST therapy session. Everything she was saying was going in one ear and right out the other. I had no idea what she was saying. I just wanted it to be over. I feel like it would be easier to just sleep and never wake up. I miss my old life. I miss how I could live without fear and feeling like i’m not real. Hopefully someone can give me advice how to pull myself out of this void and maybe some tips on how I can continue my grief process without disassociating from it. Thankyou

Whoever you’re grieving - human, animal — it doesn’t make the holidays easier. Holidays are times of happiness and togetherness and there’s just this part of you that’s no longer here. It’s like trying to walk around with a weighted blanket.

It’s been years, you say? Yeah, same. At this point my grief is quiet. I don’t want to bring down anyone else by showing the tears waiting just behind my laughing eyes. It’s like waiting for the subway. Only I’m the subway and the pain is a train full of people. Just got to hit the right spot and everything is going to flood out.

I miss my dad so much. He died January of 2022. But in October of 2021 he went into the hospital for the first time. That first Halloween was surreal. He wasn’t there and nothing seemed right. But there was still hope. He was going to come home. We just had to pull together as a family and make it happen. And we did just that. But by Thanksgiving of 2021 it was starting to seem that maybe he was going to have to spend the rest of his life in a nursing home. We spent that holiday with him and it was oddly wonderful. He was with us and laughed and joked. Then Christmas came and it seemed like this was definitely the new normal. However New Year’s Eve my mom walked into his room and he wasn’t breathing. She called me in a panic. I drove to them in tears in time to see him loaded into an ambulance. He died less than a week later. After I signed his DNR and took him off life support.

In the years since he died I’ve come to see snow as a way for him to send love my way. My first birthday after he died it snowed. The first anniversary of his death — it snowed. (Yes, they’re both in January which are months with snow but Missouri sucks at giving me the winters I long for.)

I’ve been extra sad lately and today the “dusting” of snow was an all day affair. It’s still going on — hours after the news said it would wind down. I feel my dad’s love.

So, whoever you are. Whatever you’re grieving. I’m right there with you. And my heart goes out to you.

About two weeks ago, my mother passed from brain cancer, roughly five weeks after her diagnosis. That last week was so, so incredibly difficult, and there were many things I thought would haunt me.

Surprisingly, the memory that won't leave me alone is the day I met with her doctor, who explained the extent of the cancer and why they wouldn’t attempt treatment. I went home and sat by my mother’s side, probably crying, apologising as I broke the news that her brain was fucked, but promising her we’d get a second opinion—the doctor had already agreed.

More than her last days, what comes to mind is the look she gave me then: a small smile, watery-eyed. I think she might have even sighed.

My mother was a fighter, and I think this might have been the moment she realised there was no fighting this. A look of acceptance, or maybe a look of defeat. Perhaps a little of both. I didn’t expect that to be the moment that follows me, but I can’t seem to forget it, and it breaks me.

I lost my aunty 22 years ago. She died from cancer in her early 30s. This lost shook our whole family and we all still hold onto that lost quite deeply. It's hard to understand that I'm now older than my aunty ever was.

I still remember standing at her grave refusing to leave all those years ago, crying and hugging my older brother. I might've looked like an attention seeking kid to others because the tears were heavy and loud, but 22 years on and I still cry tears for her.

I still have dreams about her and I cry in my sleep when I do. When I think about who I'll see in heaven (if it exists), the only one I see is her. I don't miss people, I'm good at being alone and having my own company, but when someone asks me if I miss them, I say no, but almost every time I think of her because she's the only one I miss.

I've lost several family members since 2003, but none of them have lasted the way this has. None of them have kept me upset for this long and sometimes I wonder if it's normal.

I had a horrible, abusive, loveless childhood in my household, but when she was at our house or I was at her house, I felt safe, I knew I was loved and cared for. I've always had issues with my mother and I know that my aunty represents what I don't get from my mother. During those bad times with my mum, I get the dreams and she pops into my head a lot.

I don't have many memories of her, only pictures and other people's stories. I do have one video of her that keeps her alive. New year 2000 at our house, my brother was recording it and she sat next to him in the dining room and stuck her tongue out to the camera. I cried recently watching that footage and I'm tearing up now thinking about it again.

Grief can last for decades, this is proof, but it's not all doom and gloom. I can live a normal life, but even after 22 years I still cry for her and still miss her incredibly.

So if heaven awaits, I hope to see her there.

Thank you for reading my story.