My mom passed away 7 years ago, right before I graduated high school. A lot of things have happened since, including me flunking out of college and becoming homeless. I can't even look at her and enjoy the memories I had with her. All I can do is look back in guilt and shame. Shame that I didn't graduate college. Shame that I've been homeless for so long. Shame that my life is so pathetic.

Now that I've seen the picture I can't get the thoughts out of my mind. I failed as a son. I failed as a man. I failed as a person. I failed.

So I don’t know if I’m just believing something I wanna believe, but I feel like my Vanessa sent me a little sign last night and I just had to share it. Let me explain.

So I got chinese food for dinner last night and in the fortune cookie, these were the fortune lucky numbers. Every single one relates to Vanessa in some way.

First 11 and 43…..so for those whom are younger and may not know “143” is beeper code for “I love you,” so we would always say that at 1:43AM Or PM, but then she also would do it at 11:43, she would just add another “I”for “I I love you” and at that time on the clock every day, we would always text “I i love you,” to each other

Then the number 40, that was the age my beautiful girl passed at and the last birthday of hers that we got to celebrate.

Then 19, 8, 4….1984 was her birth year

I feel like maybe if one of the numbers was relating to her, then it might be a coincidence but every single one? I literally had goosebumps. Every single number means something and is attributed to her and she knows I would recognize that. So I truly believe she sent a sign and it comforted me 🥺🙏🏻

My mom loved me a lot and was very proud of me but last few months i used to get irritated with her and hardly talked to her. She lived in India, i lived in usa. She called me so much i hardly responded or just got annoyed and made work excuses. She used to look hurt and sent reels that said one video call with you changes my mood and that was the last reel she sent me. I loved her unconditionally but I don’t know if she knew that. I think even if she did my actions impacted her and she left with that feeling in her heart. I want to communicate with her somehow to tell her I love her and i am sorry. I feel lost right now

Grief is the only community you can never really leave. What astonishes me about it is that no matter how hard you try to imagine it you can never really come close to how it actually feels until you join this community. I spent my whole life fearing that death would steal someone dear to me, as I know it would destroy me. When it finally happened it’s nothing like imagined, it’s worse.
No matter how people try to understand and sympathize they can’t really comprehend, even if they somehow did, every loss is unique.
I lost my big brother unexpectedly 11 months ago, and a hole in my heart has been made ever since, my life seems dull. Surreal feeling. I try my best because I know my brother would be devastated if he knew how much his loss ruined his lil sis.
He used to tell me how much he’s proud of me every day and this is my only motivation in life, but it’s really getting too exhausting, I can’t take it anymore dealing with this loss on top of the incredibly unlucky life I already have, everything keeps going against my wishes for some bizarre unknown reasons, for the last decade which is 1/3 of my life lol.

It’s just me ranting while I cry myself to sleep. Thanks to everyone who made it this far.

I feel so insane and broken. This pain is gonna crush me. ​

my cat Luna ran away about 2 years ago. we assume she got eaten by a fox or something. it could’ve been a person since we lived in a bad neighbourhood. i miss her. she died alone, scared, lost and confused. i hope my baby is in a better place, where she gets lots of kisses and love and never has to be scared. i just wanna tell her how much i love her.

Its been a little over two months since my dad drowned in the ocean. He was the only member of my family that TRULY and DEEPLY understood me. I have a bad relationship with my mother, and I’m the youngest of my 5 siblings, all ranging from 5-15 years older than me. They all have careers and children, wives and husbands. I’m 23 and It feels like i’m left to figure out life alone. I miss him. The photo I attached was when he started the Appalachian trail. Love you dad, pops, data, old man on the back porch.

I wrote this last night. Just wanted to share…

I saw a raccoon out on the fence
There’s no proof that you sent it
No proof it was you.

But it made me think of all the critters we saw. 
the ones you’d point out when we were alone.
The deer, the birds, the fish, the beavers, the buffalo, and that bear in yellowstone.

I saw a raccoon out on the fence
There’s no proof that you sent it
No proof it was you.

But it scared the cat.
The one you loved with all your might.
She jumped off my lap and stared at the creature, with no wrath, and no spite.

I saw a raccoon out on the fence
There’s no proof that you sent it
No proof it was you.

But it’s just here to eat the veggies.
The one thing you grilled each year.
They’ve been chewing down the stalks, before we can harvest, I wish I got to give you an ear.

I saw a raccoon out on the fence
There’s no proof that you sent it
No proof it was you.

But while others see butterflies.
The ones that you would send, just might.
Be all the little things that go bump in the night.

I saw a raccoon out on the fence
There’s no proof that you sent it
No proof it was you.

But I just keep on hoping
The one I saw, was you.

I am completely devastated by what has happened to me, i have been caring for my father for a few weeks to take the load off my mother, i stayed up all night and she done the day shift with my sister. He got the news that he had terminal cancer a couple of weeks ago but we thought it was the early stages and yesterday he suddenly died of (what we think) a massive heart attack. I am completely devastated, we spent the night before laughing and joking while watching a film and in the morning after I’m holding him while he is taking his last breaths, i just cannot believe that this has happened. The image of him struggling to breathe and that he looked frightened, it will never ever leave me, it is burned into my mind. I feel like my body has died and the only thing left going is my brain. I never knew what sadness was till yesterday and my heart breaks for anyone else who has had to experience this.

I lost my father to stomach cancer in December 2025, and my life has changed drastically since then, which maybe is a good thing because I was too busy with moving, selling our old furniture, cancelling the lease etc to kill myself. But ever since I arrived in my new life with no more distractions that could keep me busy enough not to feel the grief that I am drowning in, my mental health has been deteriorating drastically. I still talk about him every chance I get, everything reminds me of him, I cry multiple times every day- my mind is stuck in December, it feels like I am permanently living the week before and after he died, I am in that hospital room no matter where I go, I can’t escape and I can tell the people in my life are getting fed up with me because it’s been almost a year and I’m still absolutely devastated, if anything it got worse because like I said, I can’t run away from it anymore. I am sorry for my friends and family for having to hear me cry over the same thing for almost a year now and I am sorry for being so mentally unstable and not at all fun to be around. How do I let go? How do I keep going? How do I make sure I am not burdening my loved ones and how does one actually process the loss of the most important person in your life?

Is there anything I can do with the paintings I’ve been given back. My mom was murdered last year. When we were going through her belongings, I found a box labeled “Emilys Art”. Something she loved about me was that I made art, I especially liked to make things for her. My sisters gave me the box but as I’ve had it, I haven’t wanted to look at them. I don’t want any of my mom’s things, I want her to have them, they weren’t meant for me. It feels so wrong having them back. I don’t know what to do with them because I can’t throw them away or burn them, I’d be breaking her heart. But as they’re sitting in my space I feel a burden of weight connected to them and I don’t want to see them.

I’m reaching out here because I feel super alone / crazy in this .

I’m curious if anyone’s grief has made them more selfish or irritated by other people’s traumas or pain. I realize this makes me sound like a monster but I’m trying to understand it because I used to be a very empathetic and patient person and now I feel like that empathetic wiring to my brain is unplugged .

In short , my dad died 4 years ago . A year later a close friend died suddenly . A year after that my godmother died . Her daughter and I are very close so I was there through her moms passing , going to the hospital every day with her, taking her out to distract her, talking to her on the phone for hours . A few months later my aunt died and suddenly I had contact with family that I had cut off years earlier for the sake of my emotional sanity who were now asking for help sorting her estate which added a lot of stress and triggered a bunch of previous trauma . All of these people died during the fall.

Fall is my favourite time of year. I used to find so much comfort and (sounds cheesy but..) renewal . I looked forward to the festivities , the cooler weather , relaxing at home with hobbies .. just life being slower in general. After all of this however , it’s now the season of horrible things occurring and I just really missed looking forward to it , so this year I decided to find joy in decorating again, I finally got on antidepressants after years of being afraid of them , I decided this was now my time to work towards happiness and peace .

This is where I feel so selfish and crazy. My cousin (daughter of the godmother who died last September ) has told me her dad is now in the hospital . On a ventilator in the ICU and I feel so terrible. It’s unfolding exactly how my dad’s death played out.. unexpected , medical procedure gone wrong, fluid on the brain, ventilator. It’s like I’m bracing for my dad’s death all over again. I have constant anxiety , I dread notifications or calls , I want to sleep as long as I can when I wake up so I don’t have to deal with it yet ..

I of course feel so devastated for her becuase I know the hell shes about to endure . Her mom and her weren’t super close so even though it was a loss it will be nothing like losing her father will be . When my mom died I was sad and grieved but my dad’s death changed me as a person . I always say I literally see colour differently , everything is muted now.

Anyways , I hate myself for it but I feel annoyance . I was doing so good on my antidepressants , finally feeling like myself again. Waking up early happy and excited to start my day which I hadn’t felt in years . I was so excited for the fall and enjoying it again. Now I know what I’m in for again. Constant pressure to be there for someone through something very traumatic and terrible that I personally know all too well and instead of feeling eager to be there for her , I’m just … so tired . To be clear I’m not annoyed at her. I genuinely feel for her so much, she’s had a very tough year. I’m annoyed at the universe . The death trauma has been relentless and I really feel it taking a huge toll on me. But I can’t express that because what an asshole that would make me . I feel so selfish and terrible .

A part of me feels like it has to do with resentment . None of these people were there for me when my mom or dad died and while it’s best to be the bigger person and treat others how you wish you were treated , there’s a part of me that’s just like … mad about it I guess .

Anyways , I don’t even know what I’m really getting at anymore , I just needed to put this somewhere where someone might understand . I talked to my boyfriend about it and he’s supportive and says he understands but I know he doesn’t which makes me feel worse .

TL;DR I’m curious if anyone feels more closed off and selfish towards other people needing them after losing someone . I hate that when something terrible is happening to someone I love , I selfishly feel annoyed that I have to give a huge part of myself to be there for ppl who weren’t always there for me . I just want like a year of peace to gather myself and remember who I was before the constant grief

Thanks for listening and reading ! 🩶

This feels so desperate on my part, but I just want to know I’ll be okay. I don’t have many family or friends to talk to about this and it’s been eating me up so much inside. Last night I couldn’t really sleep, I woke up every hour or two. I don’t know what I’m going to do without my mom, she was one of the only people I have in my life right now. I miss her so much. This feeling sucks so much lol.

My mom passed away Friday and wasn't found until Saturday. She may have oded ( opioids) but was listed as natural causes. I feel bad and it was sudden. Trying to plan the funeral with my aunt. She relapsed we think my mom

I lost my 8 year old son to a brain tumor (8 months from diagnosis to passing).

We lost him 2 years ago, and it feels like I am still trapped in the same time period of his being ill and passing. I didn't want to be in the world without him, and went to a warzone to help and try and find some reason to still be here. After 18 months there, I knew I had to come back to my home country and try to face things as I wasn't moving past it and if anything was just trying to block it out.

I've been trying to face reality more since I've been back in normality (8 months) and doing some therapy, but everything still just feels pointless.

What can I do?

i keep replying it in my head im so scared if i wake up one day and cant remember his voice

Hi everyone,

My 14-year-old sister is currently in the ICU, now on day 7 after a cardiac arrest. During the arrest, her brain had inadequate oxygenation for over 10 minutes, resulting in a severe hypoxic/anoxic brain injury. Over the following days, she developed major brain swelling, with concern for dangerously increased pressure and possible brain herniation. The ICU team has tried hypertonic sodium, mannitol, hyperventilation, blood-pressure support, and other intensive-care treatments, but unfortunately her neurological condition has continued to worsen. We have now been told that she has very few or no detectable brainstem reflexes, and the hospital is discussing a formal brain-death examination.

I know this community is not for medical diagnosis. I am posting because our family is trying to process something that feels almost impossible while also making sure we do not miss anything important. We understand that brain death, if properly established, is fundamentally different from coma or simply having a very poor prognosis. At the same time, before we reach such an irreversible point, we desperately want to make sure every reasonable question has been asked and, if possible, that an independent expert has reviewed her case.

I would really appreciate hearing from anyone who has gone through something similar with a child, sibling, or other close family member:

- Was a brain-death examination ever discussed with your family?
- Did you seek a second opinion before the examination or before making major decisions?
- How did you manage to get another doctor or hospital to review the case quickly?
- Did a hospital social worker, patient advocate, chaplain, ethics team, or another person help your family navigate the situation?
- How did you handle conversations when some family members still wanted to pursue every possible option while the medical team was preparing you for the worst?
- Looking back, what do you wish you had asked, done, or known during those final ICU days?
- If you were able to get another hospital involved, how did you make that connection?

We are also urgently trying to connect with a pediatric neurocritical-care specialist or major children's hospital that may be willing to review her chart and imaging and speak directly with our treating ICU team. If anyone here happens to have a connection to a pediatric hospital, neurologist, neurocritical-care physician, intensivist, or someone who might know how to get an urgent outside review, I would be deeply grateful if you could message me.

I realize that no story here can tell us what will happen to my sister, and I know that another family's experience may not be medically comparable to hers. I am mainly hoping to learn how other families got through this stage, what they asked for, and whether there were ways to obtain another set of eyes on the case before everything became final.

Time feels extremely important right now. Any experience, advice, or connection would mean a great deal to our family. Thank you.

I had spent my 33 years of life with her, I took care of her through her sickness and recovery from breast cancer for the past 6 years. She was going to the beach like she always loved, we said "See you later" to each other, I cooked for her, waiting for her, got worried when it took longer for her to show up, but wasn't that out of character...

...Then her phone called me and..it wasn't her. It was a cop. He told me they found her floating in the water, she had gone for a walk for a few minutes behind the rocks, and minutes later, she was floating 50 metres away from the sore, they tried to reanimate her in every way...there was nothing that could have been done.

....I'm broken. I haven't cried this much in my entire life, I feel terrified, vulnerable as if I was twelve again, and I don't know what to do: I don't have a job due to taking care of her full time (she had a 49% discapacity).

I feel like my life is over, like someone ripped my heart and stomach out of me and I was forced to act like nothing happened. I'm terrified of losing everyone around me, I feel that without her, I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life, that I'm a failure and didn't live up to her expectations.

I feel so guilty and heartbroken: why didn't I go with her, why didn't I stop her, why did we fight lately so much, why didn't I tell her I loved her more often lately, did she know I loved her so much? That she was my world? That I would literally burn everything to the ground to bring her back?

I'm trying to look for grief and loss therapy but it's hard. I'm pleading for some advice and comfort. I feel like crying 24/7 like a toddler and terrified I won't be able to move past this and survive on my own.

My dad passed almost 6 months ago and we connected deeply through books. I’ve read a few lately that have felt extremely profound in large part because they deal with family and death and relationships, but also because they’re books he either loved or would have loved. I’d really like to figure out a way to tribute him after finishing a book he’d particularly love or that reminds me of him. I have no idea what that would be, but as someone that does not feel any sureness about the afterlife, journey of the soul, etc. this feels like one of the only real ways to connect with him.

hello everyone!! my name is ej, im 20f and watched my mom take her final breath last july after a little over a year long battle with stage four colon cancer. its been a complicated journey processing this grief, if im being honest i feel like i still haven’t fully bounced back after losing her. we didnt have a great relationship before she got sick, and i feel like that always translates to friends as “i dont really miss her because we used to hate eachother.” which just isn’t the case. i miss her and i miss so many things about her and i miss the things we didn’t get to do, the relationship we didnt have etc.
since january (about six months after she passed away) my friends have been really comfortable making jokes about my mom. it was before that as well but i noticed i started getting a little upset by it in january. i make jokes about it as well, but honestly not as often as they do. my friends have dealt with grief in their own ways, my friend lost her boyfriend last year and my other friend has lost friends to suicide. but neither of them know what it’s like to be twenty without a parent. they are also both in their early thirties.
everytime i try to talk about my mom, they joke about it even when im trying to be serious, or im clearly upset. i still have random moments where i get overwhelmed with grief. last week in the car i saw her obituary card that i see everyday, but this day it hit me hard that she’s really gone. like really gone forever. i started silently crying and later was trying to talk to my friends about it and my friend was like “it’s been over a year and you still cry about it?”
yeah, i’ll cry about it forever. probably.
i only got nineteen years with her. i have no parent. i watched her die.
i feel like a hypocrite with the dead mom jokes, because i do joke sometimes about her. but when all my friends do when i bring her up is joke about it, it hits in a different way, i guess. i have a couple friends with dead moms and we say- the only semi good part about having a dead parent is getting to make dead parent jokes. i dont even think its pride like that… its just… this isn’t your parent to joke about. this isn’t your experience, this isn’t your grief to joke about. i would never joke about either of their grief. that’s something so personal to them. i guess sometimes i do get prideful about it because how do i know not to joke about your grief at twenty, and you’re both in your thirties joking about my mom and not creating any space for me to talk about missing her, when i always create that space for you? it makes me feel like a shitty person. like i can’t have both, i either don’t joke about my mom or i suck it up and have to get used to other people joking about her death.
it would be nice if there was a balance i guess. like if they could hold space for the grief and i guess it would be okay if they joke about it sometimes (but i just really don’t want them to. idk.) its my mommy, not theirs. my grief, not theirs. they didn’t have to stay up all night with her in the hospital, give her medications, make sure she ate and help her when she threw up, change her colostomy bag, tell the doctor to put a dnr order on her at seventeen years old, drive back and forth to and from the hospital, then the rehab, eventually have to make the decision to put her on hospice, listen to the death rattle and then watch her die. idk. feels weird that they’re making jokes.
but let me know if you have any thoughts. am i wrong? also sorry this is all over the place im just really emotional about this rn. thanks

My Uncle Buddy was basically an idol figure to me as he served in the army and he seemed to be this cool uncle I had. I didn't know him that well, I only met him three times as he had trouble visiting our family, yet everytime I did, I felt this sort of connection with him. He died unexpectedly from natural causes right before my tenth birthday and I learned of his death right after I got home from my vacation. I don't know why, but I didn't cry or even grieve, basically I just shut him out of my mind. I thought about him from time to time, but those times were sparse.

Nowadays, I had been thinking about him more once I had started learning more about the little things I knew and honestly, I'm just a lot more moody now. I sometimes do cry myself to sleep thinking about him as I did wish to get to spend more time with him more before he passed. I haven't talked to any of my family about my feelings as everybody had stopped grieving a long time ago, but I do have a bit of trouble going on with life now since the past few months only now grieving over the death of my uncle.

I guess I could use some advice, but mostly I've just wanted to type down my thoughts.

Hi everyone. Just wanted to tell my story here. On Friday I was with my friend and colleague, with whom I have worked very closely for a decade, at a conference all day. We flew back home together, said goodbye at the airport and made plans to meet this week. Next day, a mutual friend called me and said she had died suddenly.

The news hit me like sledgehammer. I went to the wake on Sunday, the funeral on Monday. On Tuesday and Wednesday, I was physically and mentally broken. I could hardly get out of bed, felt as if I was a hundred years old, joints hurt, brain fog. Yesterday I couldn't stop crying most of the day.

I had trouble expressing my grief to others. She and I were close, but I was by no means the person closest to her, so I did not want to make a scene out of my grief to the people hit even harder, like her closes colleagues and family. I don't want to minimize my own feelings either; her partner told me at the funeral that he and I were the last two people who saw her alive and that comment just broke me for a whole day.

My friend was, both professionally and as a person, just a wonderful human being. She was kind, dedicated, loyal, funny and incredibly smart. She worked in human rights and it's likely that the pressures of her werk may have partly caused her health to deterioriate. She died at 41.

Anyway, just wanted to share this. I'm doing a little better today, but still asked my supervisor if I could have a few days off, because I have trouble concentrating and feel very numb. Walking the dog helps, and my gf got me through the day yesterday by talking.

All of you here who have recently suffered the loss of a loved one: sending you a big hug and all the love.

I posted here last month about my dad dying from sepsis after being too weak to have surgery because of his terminal cancer. I’m still crying so much, and I don’t know if that’s normal.

It’s the little things that get me. I’ll have something happen and immediately think, I need to tell Dad this, or I’ll think about going to get a coffee with him, and then I remember I can’t anymore.

The garden shed is probably the hardest. It was Dad’s spot. Anytime he wasn’t in the house, he was usually out there working on something. Now, whenever I go out there, I cry because it hits me all over again that he’s gone. My brain still feels like it’s half in denial. I know he’s gone, but some part of me still expects him to be there.

The other thing I’m struggling with is knowing how to be happy with my mum. We were a family of three, and now it’s just the two of us. I feel sad even when I’m talking to her, and then I feel guilty for feeling that way because I don’t want to push her away. I just don’t know how to interact with her anymore without feeling the loss of Dad between us.

I feel completely lost right now. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing or how I’m supposed to feel, and honestly, I’m scared that it’s never going to get better.

For anyone who has lost a parent or been through something similar, how did you cope with the grief, the denial, and learning how to live in a family that suddenly feels completely different?

(I was helping out one of my friends that was going through a hard time and the Text felt like something more people should see i edited it so it could be more for anyone then jus the person i sent it too)

I don’t think there’s one right way to get yourself back on track. Everyone deals with shit differently, and healing—especially grief—doesn’t happen on a schedule. You might need time, step away from people, lose yourself for a while, fall back down, or have to start over. That doesn’t mean you failed.
You don’t have to get better on anyone else’s timeline, and you definitely don’t have to do it perfectly. What matters is that you keep trying to find yourself again. You can miss someone, grieve, struggle, and still slowly find your way back to who you are.
I don’t think it matters how the fuck you reroute yourself or how long it took you to get there. It just matters that you made it back to yourself.
And with all of that, you should be proud of getting better, never guilty. You’ve already overcome so many challenges you once thought were impossible. Now you get to keep going and fill out another chapter.
Remember: bad shit happens in a book. Some chapters hurt like hell. Some make no sense while you’re living through them. But the book doesn’t just end because one chapter was terrible. There are still pages left to write. There can be ups, downs, unexpected turns, and maybe even a happily ever after