hi, my dog died on June 3rd 2025 and I feel like like I haven't been the same since then. he died because he had a tumor in his pancreas and I know I could've known it sooner, he was kinda yellow and I know basic medical stuff cause im very curious, so I blamed myself a lot.

Anyways, I started going to therapy and it helped me but I still have his favorite toy and his collar very near to me in my room, makes me feel less alone.

My dog was my companion for 9 years of my life since im an only child and suddenky he wasn't anymore so I felt really alone, I still do.

I have a cat now, sweetest thing in the world but there's a little emptiness inside me since I saw my dog die and I dont know how to deal with it.

Therapy doesn't help and I dont wanna bother anyone cause its been a long time and I dont even have time to deal with my feelings but this rotten feeling inside me just bothers me allot and I dont know if its there because I dont know how to grieve.

thanks

I had a fire 3 days ago. i still remember the moment when my dad told me they foubd her and she was dead, i ran to her and held her and just screamed and cried for 30 minutes and i didn’t ever want to put her down again i just wanted to hold her forever and kiss her soft furry little head and rub her little ears. She looked so peaceful curled up in a ball like she just fell asleep from the smoke or like she was already asleep and the smoke killed her in her sleep. 

The guilt i feel is eating me alive i cant get over the fact that I could’ve saved her if i had just looked for her, i didnt even try. if i had just fucking looked for her instead of panicking she would have been alive. i thought i had time i swear I thought i did, but the house became black so fast and the smoke was billowing out from the front door it was hard to breathe I wasn’t thinking straight. the thought of me just walking past her on the floor or something makes me so fucking angry at myself i just want to hit myself. I hate myself so much. i miss my baby girl so much. i wish it were me instead ofher. i wish I had died trying to save her.

rest in peace violet. my sweet beautiful grey tabby baby. you are the most beautiful cat I’ve ever known. i miss your little shimmy, the way you would stretch your back legs every single time we would talk to you. i miss your sweet little baby meow, your mischievous little antics. i miss picking you up and kissing your little face, and the way you would put your little feet on my face when i did it. i miss your air biscuits when you rolled around on the floor hanging out with me in the bathroom. i miss the way you would purr so loud every single time i talked to you or looked at you. i fucking miss every single thing about you. i miss you so much. this stupid, cruel, useless and fucking pathetic world will never be able to hurt you again. you’ll always be my baby, nothing will ever change that. i cant wait to see you again one day. I love you so much, my sweet little baby. i will love you forever. i hope you knew how much I loved you.

I lost my great auntie just under 2 weeks ago. I am 23yo and she was the first close family member I’ve lost. I feel guilty in a sense because she was my great auntie so wasn’t a direct family member however we were really close and she was like a second mum to my mum.
I know grief is hard to navigate and im struggling to just believe she won’t be here anymore. I’ve been so busy these past few days that I haven’t been able to think about it then today the sadness just hit me completely. Sometimes I feel guilty for being so sad then other times I feel guilty for not being sad.
Does anyone have any advice? I want to be there for my mum but I live in a different country so phone calls is all I can do right now. I flew home the night before the funeral and flew back the night of because I had work the next day and thought I would be okay but felt worse. When I’m not sad or happy part of me just feels empty like I’m waiting for something to help this feeling.

My poor Gramma has fallen and suffered a severe stroke, she has a brain bleed so large it's pressing her brain against her skull on the other side. I've been at the hospital since about 3 pm and won't leave until she passes. There is no chance of recovery and we're just doing our best to keep her comfortable.

I'm all alone in her room with her, we were never that close. I was the odd duck in the family and slowly drifted away when I was a teen. I'm 30 now, and I'm realizing that I'll never get back the time I missed with her.

I don't want her to be alone when she passes, but I know being here and watching it is going to ruin me. Due to the severity of the brain bleed her body is nauseated and she's unfortunately throwing up and if you aren't paying attention to sit her up far enough and get the suction tube in she will suffocate. I can't look away. Not for a second. I owe it to her to at least help her make it through the night. My heart hurts, I wanna scream, I wanna lay on the ground and just cry in a ball, I'm not okay, but I have to be the strong one for my family.

If you know of any books or anything that you think could maybe help me in my soon to be grieving pain, please leave a song you really like that brings you happiness, or a meme you really like. Please just comment things to distract my brain. Lots of love!

A friend of mine recently lost child. Their baby was born with pretty serious health issues and eventually passed at 6months old.

I know this must be such an unbelievably awful time for them. He also ended up splitting with his partner and due to rent prices ended up having to rent a place in a different town which although only 40 mins drive away, is a fair bit longer to get to by bus. Since he doesn’t drive he’s pretty isolated from friends etc as we all mostly live here.

I have zero idea what the right way to support him is

I have reached out by message of course and done the “if you need anything” thing. I work near him so don’t know whether suggesting meeting up would be helpful or whether it would be putting pressure on him. I’ve also just had a baby so I don’t know whether he’d just feel more shit talking with me. My bf is much closer to him than me and has done genuinely nothing which I find super cold of him but I don’t know whether to tell him to stop being such a shit friend or if he has a better idea of what his friend would want on account of just knowing him better

I just can’t imagine how dreadful it would be and if there’s even a tiny amount of comfort I could offer I want to do that

I know obviously everyone is different and there’s no instruction manual for things like this. I just wondered if anyone here had gone through something similar and has any thoughts on what would have been any small help to them I guess

My Dad died last Christmas. It took 3 months to get him cremated as he didn't have a will and I needed my sister's signature to do it. She is an addict and homeless and it was very difficult to get her to do anything. I was appointed the executor in May finally, and I have barely done anything since then.

I am paying the mortgage so his house doesn't get foreclosed on, but I haven't done anything else really that I should be doing. Lots of paperwork and accounts and taxes and I am completely overwhelmed. I am avoidant in general and I know I need to take care of all this. I barely know what any of this means. There is no one else to take care of this. All I see is all this evidence on how hard he worked and how much he gave and how everything he worked for just evaporated when he got laid off. For nearly my entire life he promised I would never have to go through what he went through, that we would be taken care of with his will and I've found he never had a will at all. No letters, no goodbyes, nothing.

Everyone says I need to give myself some grace, and I know I am a mess right now. Anytime I look at my Dad's papers and see how hard he was trying and I just break down. It feels so much worse when I know my Dad had to deal with the estates of his entire family before he was 20. And I am in my 30s and I feel like a lazy failure. I was in my last semester of grad school when he died and I was able to graduate in May, so I've had all this time to do this paperwork and I've been doing everything I can to avoid it. The probate is supposed to close soon.

I don't know what I'm asking for, gentleness or a reality check. I know this has to get done, but I don't think the banks and debt collectors really give a shit if I've been depressed. I wish I was smarter and more organized. I don't know if anyone has advice on how to grin and bear it. Usually in the past when I went through something rough I was able to get through it with hope for a happier future. I don't have that anymore. I miss my Dad and I feel like I've failed him in every possible way.

My grandad died today. I dont know what to do.

Halloween always gets me thinking about this. Some people keep the whole tradition going, some quietly skip it, some just do one small thing, like making the dish they always made. Curious what other people do, even if it’s tiny.

I’m about to loose my granny who I’ve been taking care of for the last few years. I’m not sad that she’s dying as death seems to be a form of mercy for her. Obviously I’m sad that I’ll have to continue living without her, but I find some relief in knowing that her suffering will stop (if that makes any sense). I’m also very bad with emotions; expressing them as well as reacting to them. What I find I’m really anxious about is what it’s going to be like right after. I know about the five stages of grief but that’s not what I’m talking about exactly. I guess I would like to hear other peoples experiences as this is the first time I’ll be loosing someone very close to me. I kind of wish I could just skip to the part where everybody will be back to their daily life. How long until that happens?

Hello, my dad passed away yesterday morning. I’m 23, he was only 60. We were close, we were father daughter but we were also good friends I like to think.
We chatted and argued a lot, we went on long aimless drives, he helped me study, we watched a shit ton of anime, cartoons and movies. We used to go to the cinema for every premiere of the third Star Wars trilogy even though we were both underwhelmed by it (he grew up with the first trilogy and nothing ever compared). We watched Attack on Titan twice and he wanted to have a second rewatch soon. We watched ATLA and TLOK many many times.
Anyway, one of my most recurring thoughts is wondering where my dad is. I know where his body is, but is he anywhere at all? I like to believe he is somewhere and that it’s a really nice place. I can’t cope with the thought of my dad just not existing anymore, how can someone just disappear? My dad believed in the afterlife, he also had a couple near death experiences that convinced him there is something. I can’t know for certain. I keep asking him to show up somehow, answer or give a sign. I may have gotten one, but I might also just be a bit delusional. I keep thinking I’ll hear him watch tv or talk with our cat, or yawn obnoxiously loud, or play age of empires at full volume (the same version he played for thirty years). I hear nothing, the house feels empty even with everyone visiting and the world is completely off key.
I suppose this is more of a vent post but It’d be nice to hear your thoughts. I wish strength to everyone here.

A close friend from college passed away in a horrible car accident. This was such a sudden and devastating loss. We are in our early thirties and no one could have even remotely seen this coming.

We hadn't really talked in three years after an unfortunately stupid incident where we just grew apart. I truly think both of us were just too stubborn and proud to fully take any responsibility for our actions and feelings.

It has been three months since he passed, and I find myself continuously thinking about him, grieving his life, what we had and what we should have continued to have. I feel so incredibly guilty grieving as hard as I have because we have not been close in years. I feel like everyone else's grief is so much larger than mine. His wife lost a partner, his young son lost a father, and his parents lost their only son. Any grieving on my part feels insulting to their loss.

I don't know what the point of this post is other than to say this is incredibly confusing and heartbreaking. I don't know what to do with all my unresolved thoughts and everything I wish I could have said.

It feels like the world is ending; I’ve been crying so much and I’ve been angry. She died naturally, seeing her unmoving was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen. She was only 7.

I’m always an ambitious person, ambitious in work and even more so as a student and I haven’t had the energy for any of it. I’ve never had a response like this to death and I’m handling it the worst out of my family. I feel very isolated because of it. I miss her so much and this pain I’m experiencing is unbearable. I have depression and haven’t felt like this since I was unmedicated years ago. Genuinely, I’m concerned for my own wellbeing, but I have no one to talk to.

I’ve been experiencing physical symptoms over the past few days too of light-headedness and nausea, just feeling like I’m about to faint for the past two days and pale. It’s like I don’t feel real. I can laugh and have fun right now at least. It gets worse when I’m alone. I miss her so much.

It's been five months since my mom my soulmate Left and I had a couple drinks because I miss my mother.

My boyfriend says he wants to leave me.

And that he doesn't understand me.

I feel like I'm barely holding it together

I'm 28 and feel like everything in my life is falling apart. I really need some support from people who understand.

My mum died seven years ago, and I still struggle with the grief, especially when I see friends experiencing things with their mothers that I'll never get to experience. Now I'm also terrified about my dad's health. He lives alone, far away, and recently told me he may have had a heart attack. I feel helpless and scared of losing another parent.

My romantic life is also complicated. My ex and I have become physically close again, but he dismisses my feelings and leaves me feeling worse. Another man I care about is in love with someone else, and I'm struggling with the hurt and loneliness that comes with that.

I feel like I've spent my twenties surviving rather than living. My anxiety is getting worse, I feel like I have nobody to lean on, and I constantly compare myself to others who seem to have happier, more stable lives.

I'm exhausted from carrying so much while feeling so alone. Has anyone else experienced losing a parent young and feeling like they've never really recovered? How do you cope when you don't have a stable support system?

My mom passed away two weeks ago, I am feeling immense grief so I have decided to write about her cancer journey.

My mother was such a strong person. In December 2022, my mom was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, I was 18, my siblings were 16, 14 and 11. My dad is the same age as my mom, and he is a doctor.

She had the ALK mutation, which meant that she could take targeted therapy drugs to combat her cancer. It went well for around 7 months, she was responding well to the treatment and we had so much hope. The night before my LNAT exam (I am currently a law student in the UK), I found out that my family was hiding from me that the targeted drugs had stopped working, and she was starting chemotherapy immediately. I became depressed and hopeless, and I refused to sleep that night. I ended up not finishing my LNAT exam, and missed out on my dream university.

Before she started chemotherapy, at least I could pretend that everything would be okay, she would keep taking the medication, her cancer would go into remission and she would be okay for years, decades. I could just be hopeful. But when I found out she would start chemotherapy, I broke down. I could not handle it. I knew that this meant her lifespan would be shortened, and it would be extremely painful for her to go through.

Around the end of 2023, my mother was going through chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy. She was so so strong through it. She gained a lot of body weight from the immunotherapy, her looks changed so much and it was hard for her to even move. Her self confidence went down a lot from her changed appearance. I remember spending a whole afternoon just massaging her legs because they had bloated a lot, it was to help her blood circulati. She would always tell me that it helped her movement and pain so much after I was done.

I gave her massages frequently throughout the years. It was usually before she went to sleep. She loved my massages. It was one of those moments of the day that she would be very relaxed, and we could just talk like normal. She would be in less pain and would be smiling and laughing during our conversations. I miss those moments so so so much.

There were also many close calls when she was going through immunotherapy. She passed out one night from fluid in her heart, and needed to have immediate surgery. We were all so so scared and were crying, we thought we had already lost her. It was the night before my flight back to college. I skipped my flight and stayed for another week to be with her. She fainted again the night after I went back to college.

In 2024, she slowly recovered from the side effects of treatment. She seemed fine, her cancer was not progressing, so I decided to pursue my dreams of studying law in the UK. I knew I would be very very far away from my family, but my family reassured me, and I went. In 2024 and 2025, I would come back for full summers and winters to take care of my mother and my family. She was doing well, we were creating a lot of memories, and everything seemed normal.

Fast forward to 2026, she started having pleural effusion (fluid in her lungs). I know that my family has been lucky, many people with stage 4 lung cancer have only days or months to live, but due to her specific ALK mutation, targeted therapy helped a lot and she managed to live on for four years. We even went on family trips. My family visited me in the UK, we also went to China together early this year.

After our China trip, we found out about her pleural effusion, and started regular drainage of her lungs. She also started becoming dependent on oxygen machines, needing oxygen concentrators to keep her blood-oxygen level up. At first she only needed it a few hours a day, but eventually she was using it 24/7. This became the new normal in our family. Despite being sick, she kept insisting on cooking for us every day. She was such a good cook. It was what she prided herself on. We all loved her cooking, she was so creative and intuitive about it. Our new normal was also carrying portable oxygen concentrators when we went outside. We would strap it at the back of her electric wheelchair, and she would just race around (she was a fast driver haha).

Eventually, besides becoming completely oxygen machine dependent, she also started getting weaker. There was no cancer progression, her right lung was completely fine (many people can live on healthily with just one lung), but she just slowly started feeling more out of breath. In July and August 2026, I started researching for further treatment of her pleural effusion. I read medical journals, talked to doctors and discussed them with my dad. My mother's quality of life had been severely affected by her oxygen dependency, and it had started making her feel hopeless. My research made her hopeful, and we regularly discussed different treatment options. We were so so hopeful.

One of her doctors, a lung cancer specialist, said we should not attempt treatment because it is not recommended for stage 4 lung cancer patients. We found out that he said this because he believes that the mortality rate of stage 4 lung cancer patients makes it pointless to try to solve her pleural effusion. In other words 'she's gonna die at any time so why stress it'. My mother was furious at this, I was too. So we wanted to get second opinion on this, and we ended up deciding to go through with the treatment.

However, we could not do the treatment because my mother was unfit to fly. Her lung capacity had deteriorated too much for her to fly for treatment. This was in September 2026. It was such a fast deterioriation because she had just flown in July 2026. Therefore, she had to start doing more breathing exercises and physical therapy to increase her lung capacity for her to be fit to fly and to do surgery.

Some of the doctors suggested an IPC (catheter). She did not want this because she said she would not feel 'human' with a bag attached to her chest every day. I helped her fight it, exploring other treatment options before I had to go back to the UK for my studies.

The day I went back to the UK, the day I saw her for the last time, she insisted on driving me to the airport. I remember hugging her and kissing her and telling her that I loved her. I also told myself that that would not be the last time I see her. She is fit enough to drive me to the airport, so surely her condition was not that bad.

A few days after I went back, my mother was driven to another town to install an IPC. The doctors had decided it was the best treatment option with the least risk. However, after installing the IPC, it felt like she had lost hope for life. They told her she would have to wear it for the rest of her life. I did not know this. I was also previously told that the IPC could be temporary, that it could just be used to temporarily drain fluid in her lungs until she got better, and then she could get permanent surgery.

So she lost hope for life and her condition deterioriated very fast. I really wanted to be there for her in her last days. She insisted that I do not come back to take care of her, and that she wanted me to focus on my studies, and that this would make her feel at peace. I did as she said, I studied and carried on with life. My dad also told me that she still has weeks or months to live, and that I should focus on university.

I did as I was told, and I was going to fly back during reading week at the end of October to see my mother. However, I received a call on October 14 that her condition was rapidly deterioriating and she was going to die that day. I was completely devastated.

She was in a coma-like condition and she could not speak. She would move her eyes a bit when we were speaking, I think she was trying to tell us we could hear her. Before she passed, she even raised her arm and pat my sister on the back. I think she was trying to say goodbye and reassure us.

Sadly, I did not get to say goodbye to her. She passed away when I was at Heathrow Airport waiting for my flight. We were on video call. My other sister was on a flight back to her. My father and two siblings were hugging her as she passed. I spent the 10+ hours on the flight back crying and feeling completely empty.

It has been almost two weeks since my mother passed away. I miss her so so much. She was such a strong person, she was put through so much. I had watched her do endless surgeries and procedures and treatments. She did it all for us. For me, my siblings, my dad. She did not want to leave us. She wanted to see us grow up and flourish. She wanted to have more time with my dad, her high school sweetheart.

I am grateful for the (almost) four more years I had with her. The doctors and my dad made it happen. I just, wish I had more. I am 22, and I am grieving all the milestones I will miss with her. My graduation, my wedding, my first kid. I am so incredibly sad that she will not be there with me.

I also know how hopeful she was. I knew how much she wanted to live and be with us. Every time I think of how hopeless she must have felt at the end, I feel close to having a panic attack. They say she was at peace when she went, but I know better. I had so so many conversations with her during my summer break. We had so many plans, we had so much hope of her getting better, all those dreams died with her. And a big part of me died with her too.

I keep trying to tell myself that her pain is over, her struggle is over and she can finally be at peace. This is definitely true. But I still miss her. I miss her laugh, her stubbornness, her energy and her food. I miss massaging her feet and taking care of her. I miss hugging and kissing her goodnight every night. I wish I did all this one last time.

I know I was honouring her wish by staying in the UK and studying. But if I knew she would pass away this soon, I would never have went back to the UK and I would have stayed to be there for her one last time.

She frequently told me and my dad that I took care of her best. I listened to her needs, I was attentive and she felt heard and seen. This brings me a lot of peace. But it also brings me a lot of grief that I could not be the one there taking care of her during her last days. I know she was unhappy with the food my dad cooked and the way she was taken care of. I think she wishes I was there but she did not tell me because she wanted me to focus on my life. I can't help but feel like I will regret my decision not to fight and go back, for the rest of my life.

These 5 years have been crazy to say the least and just when life is getting quiet, I remember you.

It’s not like I forgot you. I still think about you from time to time. When you get brought up in conversations. What happened that night, what happened before and after. How unexpected it was. How sudden. How young. How your long-time S.O. got pregnant and got married not long after you died.

I genuinely believed that I got over you. After a year. I didn’t feel pain when I get reminded of you. I didn’t cry. I didn’t feel anything. As much as insensitive as it seems, it felt like you were just a thing in the past. Maybe I just gotten so caught up in my own life and problems that I forgot that you existed. That you used to be someone I admired so much and that impacted me.

So when I saw your channel, I thought huh I forgot about this. But I didn’t feel anything at that moment since it wasn’t uncommon for me to check your socials from time to time. But most of them were just pictures or videos with music in the background when you were traveling or you singing in church. So I thought maybe this was going to be something similar.

Hearing you. Not singing. Just talking normally. Joking even. Genuinely hearing you speak after 5 years just came in flooding to me. Like I couldn’t breathe and it felt like my throat was closing up. Just hearing you talk for 5 seconds just affected me in a way I didn’t expect.

I really do miss you. Maybe I haven’t moved on at all. Maybe I just ignored grieving you so I could sleep at night. Maybe it was easier to ignore than it is to face. Why did it have to be you? Someone so generous and genuine as you? Why?

Were you not enough for God? Was being a teacher not enough? Was being a preacher and pastor not enough? Couldn’t God give you a chance to create your own life? You were planning on buying a house, hell you made a store for your mom, you were finally getting financially stable. You were ready to even propose to your S.O.

Why couldn’t God let you stay? Why couldn’t God let people like you stay? I’m tired of hearing God took you because you were kind and your purpose here was done that’s why you’re gone. What did you do to deserve to die in such a way? All I can think is how your life could’ve been if you were still alive. How different the world would be. How it could have been better or worse.

I remember how effortlessly kind you were. You always were kind to me. Even how weird I was or different from the rest, you never treated me differently. And how you would pick me up from school when no one else could. Always on time. Never late. You just made the people around you so light And happy. Maybe that’s why you majored in education. You weren’t perfect or a complete saint. You were just you. You were real.

I’ve known religious people all my life. And no one can ever compare to you. No one has ever made me this close into believing in faith other than you when you were still here. Like you proof that God exists and that there’s many people like you out there. Helping the best they can.

I wish to be half of the person you were. You genuinely cared. And you deserved so much more than you got. If I had the chance to meet you again in my next life, I would take it in a heartbeat. I hope you’re at peace koya. I aspire to become great like you. Thank you forever for the memories. You were one of life’s greatest gifts to me. I wish we all got to say goodbye to you one last time.

I hope you’re proud. You impacted so many students of yours and that will never forget what you did for them. If you just had a chance to survive the accident you would’ve done so much more despite having done more than enough.

We love you so much Koya F. I’ll try to continue living the way you did. Even if life is garbage to me right now. I’ll get through it, just like you did.

i lost my father three days ago. i’m an emt and i saw his address pop up while at work and my partner drove me to the house. i was there when my dad was pronounced and honestly think it helped me start grieving faster because i saw him and saw that he was gone. my father was only 54 and despite rapidly declining in health these past few months, he never told us the extent of his illness. my stepmom found paperwork stating he had liver cirrhosis and my guess is it was either too far along for him to be able to get a transplant in time or he decided he didn’t want to stop drinking long enough to be eligible for a transplant. all that to say i’m still young. i’m only 19 and my siblings are 22, 15, and 5. i feel like im barely an adult and now i don’t have my dad anymore. anyone have advice for people who lost parents around my age?

My grandma best friend best human in the world for
Me died 40 days ago. Today in my culture we celebrate her moving onto the next world. I haven’t broken down yet ( I have 2 small kids and work etc so my time alone is pretty limited) but I feel like it’s still a surreal thought. I avoid her room like the plague I can’t go in there. She lived with my parents since I was 10. She raised me a lot and she was my go to for advice, for life in general, for comfort, for kindness, for all the support you’d want from family. I still can’t believe it - I was there for her last week in hospital I was there an hour after she passed in the night, I was there for her funeral i kissed her cold face. I thought I faced it all but in my mind she’s still not gone I haven’t accepted anything. I haven’t moved forward at all - the moment I think of her not being alive my brain changes the subject. I feel completely stuck and insanely hurt with no time to actually process it. I’m expecting to just collapse and cry for weeks but it’s not coming.

Hey guys, first ever reddit post here so feeling a bit nervous!

5 months ago, my Nana passed away unexpectedly. We were very close and the grief was all consuming for those first few days. I’ve experienced a good bit of grief in my life so far, so was able to ‘get on’ with life in terms of working etc by using coping mechanisms that i’ve grown accustomed to.

However, this time something is different. That first month when i continued pretending everything was ‘normal’ and going to work, seeing friends, my usual routine, i was filled with sadness and loss but was generally able to carry on. as the months have gone by i’ve progressively gotten worse and worse. I have stopped going out, have had to cut down on work, have had days where i’ve been unable to get out of bed, and have experienced that terribly scary type of depression and hopelessness you have when you’re 17 and don’t know what emotional regulation is.
I was someone who was so independent, compassionate, and full of joy and positivity even on the worst of days (thanks to a lot of therapy 2 years ago). Yet now I feel nothing. Not even sadness or grief anymore. I feel so detached from life. Smiling is tiring, no matter how hard i try to throw myself into my hobbies & the things that once mattered so much to me, i just feel numb. I tried antidepressants and they just made me feel worse. I’ve tried Tai Chi and meditation and so many different routines. And even though my productivity is slowly coming back, it no longer feels like ‘me’ who’s doing it.

Basically, I feel detached from myself and reality. And the strangest part is, I feel like i’ve processed the grief of losing her quite well, but this empty part of myself seems to remain. I’m tired of being someone who’s exhausting to be around. I don’t make jokes, I can barely hold conversations anymore, and nothing except reading all day for a bit of escapism brings me any satisfaction. I miss the person I was. I miss being happy.

I guess my question is, has anyone else felt this way? Felt like no matter how hard they tried to be ‘normal’ that they stopped being themselves after grieving? And how did you overcome it and begin to reconnect with life and your emotions again?

Thanks :)

(22/F)

My mums stuff has been sitting in my shed now since July. I'm stuck, I don't want to get rid of it, but I can't keep it there either. I know that's probably normal. And I don't know if I should sell what she has to recoup the financial loss from her funeral or donate it. But then I have to go through it all again, and it just breaks my heart so I don't know what to do. I know the pain won't go away, and it still feels so wrong even going through her stuff. What did you guys do? And how did you manage?

i (22f) lost my best friend a few days ago. we just finished with her wake recently, and now i have to go back to living my own life.

i was away from home bc i stayed over at my my friend’s town for the whole wake. i told my parents i wanted to be with my best friend on her last few days and they let me. now that im back home, i don’t know how im supposed to act. i know my parents are worried, that they want to check up on me, but i can’t help but just feel like im trying to keep up with a performance that’s not for me.

i don’t know how to act. i know i have a lot of backlogs waiting for me, and i really am trying to work on them again, but i cant help just let my mind wander and i end up not doing any work. it’s frustrating. everything is moving forward and i can’t help but just try to keep catching up.

my parents keep trying to talk to me, they’re trying to tell me stories, but like i said, my mind wanders, and suddenly im not there anymore. i feel like im watching everything go by in third person, bc i keep telling myself, “you have to do this, you have to respond, you have to” this and that. i’m aware of what i’m supposed to do and not do, but i can’t help but just stay in the same place. i know isolation is the last thing i need right now, but keeping up with conversations is genuinely so hard. i’m not even present with the others, so i can’t help but feel rude.

i feel like im on a timer. that i have this limited time to be in this state of grief before i start functioning normally again. i don’t know what to do, how im supposed to act and proceed from here.

i’m exhausted and i miss my best friend.

Here is some advice somebody send me after losing my wife. She was paralysed for the last 9 years of her life, But still semi cognitive and full of life. One day she’s an 8-year-old, some days a 20-year-old and on her better days she’s her real age. She also had aphasia and thus verbal communication was difficult, although we were able to communicate with her noises and my game of a thousand questions. Lucky she was able to use her left arm/hand and we built up a nice vocabulary of noises/signs etc.

Her death was totally unexpected. Doc said she might have died for a stroke or blood clot. It was over in less than 5 minutes. Anyway, here is something that somebody send me, and it really works for me. It is actually her 3rd birthday away from us today, so this is extra tear jerking.

Alright, here goes. I'm old. What that means is that I've survived (so far) and a lot of people I've known and loved did not. I've lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbours, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can't imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here's my two cents.

I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don't want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don't want it to "not matter". I don't want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can't see.

As for grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don't even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you'll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what's going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything...and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.

Somewhere down the line, and it's different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O'Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you'll come out.

Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don't really want them to. But you learn that you'll survive them. And other waves will come. And you'll survive them too. If you're lucky, you'll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks. Just cling to the wreckage and the waves will quiet down. Hope reading all of this helps you in your grief and sorrow.

 Edit: This happened in January 2024. Feeling better now but still miss her every day. Just keep this advice in my head and when the waves come in high, I just weather them out and swim over the low ones. Good luck and strengths to you and all the people left behind.

I (26f) lost my Dad (82m) in July and these have been the most painful months of my life. I am struggling so much. I cry every day, multiple times a day. I don’t see this ever getting any easier. I feel like I’m carrying everyone else’s grief and no one seems to care. I have to apologise for getting upset when someone has done something to upset me.

Why do people just not give a shit when you are hurting. I was literally crying in the corner of the room and nobody asked how I was. I am drowning and I am so fucking angry at people for how little they notice or care.

I am an incredibly sensitive person but seriously what is wrong with society that grief makes people so uncomfortable and no one wants to talk about the person they’ve lost?

I’m so lonely in this and I’m angry at everyone around me for not just asking if I am ok, just once. Let me talk about it, please!!

Has anyone else felt this way, how did you make yourself feel better when you feel completely alone and misunderstood.

I miss my Dad with my whole self and I would do anything to make this different.

I (33F) lost dad (90M) on 10/03/2026. It was sudden.

I keep reliving all the things CPR to the toe tag to funeral drama. I cried the first few days but I just feel numb and like this is a bad dream that I keep hoping to wake up from. As I move from caregiving adult daughter to handler of the paperwork I dont think Im going to have time to grieve before the next round.

Maybe in all the struggles, I did the grieving already. Maybe this is just my new normal.

I truly wouldnt wish this on my worst enemy.

Maisy
In the spring of 2018, I was living in a large city in the Deep South. On this particular night, I was sitting on the couch next to my husky, Toby. I had just finally rocked my baby to sleep, and my older daughter was asleep in her bedroom. My husband at the time was a cop, and he was working the midnight shift that night. It had been raining violently for at least the third day in a row.

Around 10:30 p.m., I got a text from my husband. It contained a photo of the smallest, saddest-looking puppy I had ever seen. He said something like, “Look at this poor puppy. Another officer found her sitting in the middle of the road at a high spot, surrounded by flooded roads. I know we can’t, but if you know anybody looking for a puppy, she’ll be at the shelter tomorrow. Spread the word.”

And I stared at this little baby in the picture, and my entire body knew that she was mine.

I sent one text: “I’m on my way. Tell me where to meet him. I’m loading up the girls now.”

I stood up and started running. I started throwing things in a diaper bag, grabbed my keys, and herded a confused Toby into his kennel while he tried to run to bed instead. At one point, I kicked the coffee table as I ran by, and pain shot up my leg. (I would later find out that I had broken my pinky toe.)

I gently shook my eldest daughter awake, told her we needed to run an errand to help a puppy, grabbed the baby out of the swing, and was halfway to the car to buckle them in when my husband called me. He said, “Put the girls back in bed. I got permission from my supervisor to take the rest of the night off. I’m on my way to the puppy now. I’ll be home in an hour.”

Well, as you can imagine, two little girls who knew a puppy was somehow involved were not easily put back to bed.

Around midnight, she made it home, met her people (and Toby), and we made her a little nest in our bathtub.

The next day, I took the day off work, gave her a thorough flea bath, and took her to the vet. She had an infection and would need to be kept quarantined for a few weeks. For those first few weeks, she lived in a grocery basket in the bathtub. She was so tiny that even that basket seemed too big for her. But as soon as she got the all-clear, she officially joined the family, and our world was never the same.

We named her Maisy. (It was sort of a consolation prize of a name; Maisyn was almost our second daughter’s name, and I wasn’t ready to let go of the name.)

Maisy. Or Maisy Daisy, once we got her a tiny navy blue collar with daisies on it. Then Crazy Maisy, once she decided to share her personality with us.

And Toby, ever the sweetest big brother, took her under his paw and taught her how to be a dog.

There are a thousand photos. Babies sprawled out across dogs, dogs sprawled out across babies, babies carrying dogs, dogs dragging babies… These dogs grew up right alongside my girls, and they were the two most perfect fits for our family.

Fast-forward to the pandemic: We shook up our lives a bit and moved cross-country back to where we both grew up.

A few years later, we shook up our lives again. My ex and I separated in 2023, and he asked me to take the dogs when I moved out of our home while he figured out what came next. I suggested a shared-custody arrangement, like with the kids, and told him we could figure it out when he was ready. By this point, Maisy was five and Toby was ten, and he was definitely showing signs of his age.

Just before the holidays that year, my ex reached out and said he was anxious about the holidays and waking up alone without the girls on Thanksgiving or Christmas morning. He asked if he could keep Maisy through the holidays so he wouldn’t be alone, but he would leave Toby with me since he was struggling. I felt bad for him, and it seemed reasonable, so I agreed to the plan and said I would get her back after Christmas and before the new year.

When Christmas passed, I sent him a text to arrange Maisy’s return, and his response was essentially, as best as I can remember:

“I’ve decided that it’s best for me and the girls that Maisy stays with me. I can explain the legalities of it to you if you need me to, but I’m not arguing with you about a dog. Neither of us have a lot of extra money, but if you want to spend yours taking me to court, go for it. But it’ll be pretty disappointing if you decide that going to court over a dog is more important than peaceful coparenting for our children.”

So, I did what any rational woman would do when her dog was taken from her: I lost my shit. I called the police, I called a lawyer, I concocted elaborate plans to steal her back, begged people to help me steal her back, etc. But then I realized that he was right. I would have to pay thousands of dollars to take him to civil court and HOPE I got her back. So, he won because he was, technically, right. I wasn’t willing to put my children through that fight if I couldn’t be sure it would work out, and they still had her half the week… so I gave up.

I’ve seen her maybe five times since November of 2023, and every time I see her, I sob afterward. She cries and tackles me and whines the entire time, and it breaks my heart into pieces.

In the Spring of 2024, Toby rapidly declined, seemingly overnight, and we made the heartbreaking decision to put him down. I told my ex a few days before the appointment, and he stopped one afternoon to love on Toby when he picked up the girls. On the day of his appointment, my ex had the girls, but they wanted to be with us, so the plan was for me to come get them so they could be with us at home to say goodbye.

When I picked the girls up, Maisy ran out, and I burst into tears. I started begging him to let me take her to say goodbye to Toby, promising that I would bring her right back in an hour. He dragged her into the house by her collar and told me to leave. He later texted me and lectured me about putting him on the spot in front of the girls, and how dare I even think he would let me take her, knowing that I could just keep her forever. I remember thinking that was a particularly interesting accusation, considering that's exactly what he had done.

So she didn’t get to say goodbye, and he told me I would never see her again unless I put it in writing, officially, that I had no claim to her.

Fast-forward again to this past Friday. A lot of time has passed. I dropped my girls off at their dad’s for the weekend, and he was sitting on the front porch. He sent them inside and told me that they had found a lump. They took her in. It’s cancer. It’s bad. It’s everywhere… There’s nothing that can be done. He said he would tell the girls in the morning unless they specifically asked about her that night. (They did know they were taking her to the vet that day.) He also invited me, my mom, and my fiancé to come say goodbye in the morning.

Friday night, I was furious. My fury overtook my body. I was so angry I couldn’t breathe.

I was angry that she was sick, and I was angry that it wasn’t caught sooner… but mostly, I was angry about all of the time I had lost with her. Three entire years of her being 15 minutes away, or in the background of a FaceTime call, or crying through a door at a drop-off… Three years that I couldn’t hold her in my lap while I read; three years I woke up missing the numbness in my legs from her sleeping diagonally across my hips.

I cried harder Friday night than I have cried in decades. I don’t even remember the drive home from his house. I couldn’t breathe. I called my mom on the way home; I sobbed, I hiccuped, I screamed.

At some point on the drive, my eldest, now almost 13, called me. I stared at her name on my phone for just a second, and I told my mom I had to go. I took a deep, shaky breath and answered the phone, having no idea if she knew or not. I said, “Hey, baby, what’s up?” as normally as I could manage, and she burst into tears. I had to pull over… We cried together, wordlessly, for a few minutes, and she said, in the quietest voice I’ve ever heard from her, “I had so much more time with her than you did.” And I told her, genuinely, that I was just so glad Maisy had the girls all that time.

That night, I fell asleep with my partner’s hand firmly pressed into my collarbone, trying to calm me as I shook myself to sleep, truly unable to stop myself from sobbing until my body gave out. I didn’t think I was going to be able to get through the next day.

Saturday morning, I woke up at 5 a.m., dreading the entire day. My head throbbed, my eyes were so swollen that my face hurt to touch, and I was covered in sweat. I lay in bed for hours and watched the sun come up through the crack in our blackout curtains. No more tears came, though. I think I had used them all…

Eight years old. She was my world, my surprise baby that came after my last baby, and I have grieved her so many times over the past few years, but that morning I would get to see her for the final time.

For hours, I scrolled through my photo album on my phone, from the spring of 2018 until the fall of 2023, until the scattered photos of her suddenly ceased to exist and my fiancé finally started to stir next to me.

I showered, hoping the hot water would help the swelling in my face go down, but it didn’t do much. I put my makeup on, minus mascara, and it felt like I was preparing to head into battle. Just after 10, we headed out to grab coffee on the way, mostly because my daughter had asked me to bring her a pup cup.

My daughter sent me her dad and his partner’s standard coffee order, seeming only a little surprised when I asked what they would want, and we headed over with two drink carriers and a very special pup cup.

Maisy recognized all of us immediately, even my fiancé, whom she had only known for a few months but had truly bonded with, despite typically distrusting men.

I noticed, through blurry vision, that she had a bright aqua collar on. It had daisies on it. My ex’s girlfriend saw me touch it and said, “Her old one was starting to fall apart. I had to get her a new one, and I loved the daisies for Maisy!” And then my 13-year-old said, “Didn’t her first collar have daisies?” And I smiled because I didn’t think she would have remembered that detail, but she was absolutely right, and somehow her first collar and her last collar were both just perfect for her.

I sat on the floor of my ex-husband’s home, surrounded by tissues and bodies with shaking shoulders, and all of the anger faded away. I was brokenhearted, surrounded by other brokenhearted people, and the anger suddenly seemed so unimportant.

We cried, we laughed, we looked at old pictures of our babies with our fur babies, and I whispered that I loved her in her ears no less than 100 times. We walked over a mile around a lake, took new pictures together to add to the thousands, and cuddled in her favorite chair.

Just a weird collection of broken people, grieving the same beautiful creature.

As we said our final, final goodbyes and I pulled the door shut behind us, I stared into her eyes and tried to somehow convey how thankful I was for all of the love she had given me over the years, for the way she raised my babies alongside me, and for the way she and Toby always knew when I needed a reminder that I wasn’t alone.

So, to my Maisy girl, I have loved you completely since the moment I knew you existed, and I will love you always. Go find your brother, and look after our girls. You will be so deeply missed.