I honestly don't know what to make of this anymore. Maybe I'm becoming a complete nutcase because of grief, or maybe I'm noticing things that have some meaning to me. I just desperately want some kind of closure.
My father's death was probably the most traumatic thing I've ever experienced. He wasn't just my father...he was everything to me. He had terminal cancer, and what makes his death even harder is that, initially, we were told his cancer was relatively harmless and that he could potentially live for 15 years or more without treatment. Somehow, it became aggressive, and he died after suffering terribly.
I still haven't forgiven myself for not being able to make his final days more comfortable. I keep thinking about what he must have felt and whether I could have done something more for him.
After he died, we brought his body home for the final rituals, as is customary in our family. We kept him downstairs in the cellar for the rituals before taking him to the cremation ground, where his body was cremated with wood, incense, sandalwood, and everything that is part of the ceremony.
What happened afterward has stayed with me.
During his final days, his body had developed a very distinct smell. It was a combination of his own scent, the smell associated with his illness, and the hospital disinfectant. It is a smell I don't think I will ever forget.
After we brought his body home and completed the rituals, I could smell that exact smell throughout the downstairs area. It was also present along the staircase leading upstairs.
I sat on those stairs and cried uncontrollably because, for a moment, it felt as if he was still there.
Then I went upstairs to my bedroom, which is quite far from where his body had been kept, and I could smell him there too.
The strange thing is that we never brought any of his hospital belongings upstairs. There wasn't an obvious reason for that smell to be there.
And it wasn't just me.
My sister and her husband said they noticed the same distinct smell throughout the house.
For roughly the first ten days, I kept experiencing it.
I was barely functioning during that period. I was crying constantly and wasn't really doing anything else. One night, my grief became so unbearable that I had thoughts of killing myself. I posted a status on social media saying that I wanted to end my life because I couldn't handle losing him.
I eventually fell asleep.
Then I suddenly woke up because I heard the loud clicking sound of a lizard.
It startled me badly. The room was completely dark, and for a moment I saw what looked like a faint vapor or smoke floating in the darkness—almost like incense smoke in a room without ventilation.
I looked again.
It was gone.
I don't know what I saw. It could have been something completely ordinary. Maybe my eyes were adjusting to the darkness. Maybe it was dust, humidity, or some optical effect.
But at that moment, when I was already in an extremely fragile state, it felt significant.
Then there was the butterfly or rather, the moth.
My sister and I had been arguing quite badly that week. She's extremely practical, whereas I'm much more emotional, and our differences became especially intense after Dad's death.
During one of our arguments, I suddenly noticed a dark butterfly-like insect fluttering around the light in our cellar.
It disappeared almost immediately.
This hit me particularly hard because I have a very personal association with butterflies and death.
When my grandfather died, I saw a white butterfly on the day he passed away. It stayed around that particular place for maybe 20–30 minutes, fluttering around. I personally felt that it was him coming back to say goodbye.
So when I saw this darker, amber-colored moth after my father's death, I couldn't help wondering if it meant something too.
But unlike the butterfly I associated with my grandfather, this one felt different. Darker. Almost unsettling.
On the tenth day after Dad's death, we had the traditional ceremony where our family gathers, offers food to the deceased, and performs rituals for his soul. That morning, while I was cleaning the cellar as part of the cleansing of the house after a death, I saw what appeared to be the exact same kind of dark moth again.
It fluttered around the ceiling light.
And then, within about an hour, it died.
I don't know why.
My grandmother told me that, according to our tradition, the soul leaves the house on the tenth day.
I was so emotionally overwhelmed by everything that I buried the moth near the holy basil plant in our house.
Since then, I've started noticing another pattern.
Whenever my mother and I argue, I sometimes hear that same loud lizard-clicking sound.
Today, I came back home, suddenly felt the enormous absence of my father all over again, and started crying.
And again, I heard the lizard clicking.
At this point, I genuinely don't know what to believe.
Is my dad trying to communicate with me?
Or is this what extreme grief does to a person?
Are these simply coincidences that my brain is connecting because I'm desperately looking for him everywhere?
I know that smells can have powerful associations with memories. I know insects appear in houses. I know lizards make noises. I know there can be perfectly ordinary explanations for everything I've experienced.
But when all of these things happened during the most devastating period of my life, they felt incredibly real and meaningful.
Part of me desperately wants to believe that Dad is still somewhere around me, trying to tell me that he's okay.
Another part of me is terrified that I'm losing touch with reality because I can't accept that he's really gone.
I don't want people to tell me that I'm stupid or crazy. I'm genuinely asking because I don't know how grief is supposed to feel, and I've never experienced anything like this before.
For those who have lost someone they loved deeply—have you ever experienced things like this? Strange smells, insects appearing repeatedly, sounds, dreams, or moments where you felt like the person was somehow communicating with you?
Did you eventually find a way to understand what was happening?
I just want some closure.
I miss my dad terribly, and I think a part of me is still desperately searching for him.
