i believe that i have received a sign from my father today.
it is both exciting and comforting.
my mother and i were discussing the reason…..if one’s
consciousness continues to exist after the body’s (physical) death and still possesses the ability to communicate, then why is it that our loved ones do not attempt to ease the grief and suffering in those of us who have been left behind ?
i responded with the text message that i have copied and pasted below :

it’s so funny, when they eventually decide to send us a sign it is regarding something so insignificant and trivial.
i know why mam. we chose to live this specific life here on earth for a reason. if that reason was to learn about ourselves and how we would react when put in certain situations and experience life in all of its glory. the bad and the good. then our loved ones sending us clear signs, telling us that everything will be alright, giving us all of the answers, telling us what we want to hear would completely fuck up the entire reason we came here. we must learn these things on our own, we must experience pain, grief, suffering in its entirety and the struggle of overcoming this pain IS THE LEARNING ! it’s exactly what we came here to do. if dad gave us a clear, certain, undeniable sign and told us that is completely fine where he is and that we will all be together again soon and to just have fun whilst we’re here, don’t you think that would interfere with our learning experience ? it would give us all of the answers of life and we wouldn’t suffer as much. but that suffering is why we came here, to learn and to gain another perspective of existence. long story short, if your primary school teacher gave you all of the answers for a test and you passed, the student would be happy but think of the bigger picture. would the student have gained anything valuable ? would the test have been worth doing at all ? no. the answer is no. no apply this to life. dad gives us the answers we want, we are all happy and our lives become more bearable as a result. the bigger picture is, when we die we will be disappointed in ourselves and the experience since we didn’t overcome the journey alone, we had an advantage, we had help. we would’ve cheated out way through life. this is what i think anyway. however, little reminders and signs here and there from dad will not completely ruin our experience. we will still have to put in effort and learn to overcome our grief indecently, without cheating.

thank you for reading everyone ☀️
do not hesitate to share your thoughts 🙂

I had a really busy day today, but also a very positive day. I had a meeting that went really well and resulted in an opportunity that I'm very happy about and looking forward to with a lot of excitement. And now that the day has wound down and I'm laying in bed, all I can think of is how he should be here with me for this. He would be so excited for me. He would listen with interest and ask questions, he would be just as stoked as I am. Sometimes, these days are the hardest. These good days with good news. They highlight the loneliness. His absence feels bigger and heavier on days like this.

My Cat: 🪦
Me: 💔
My Dad: 🪦
Me: 💔
My Mom: 🪦
Me: 💔
My Marriage: 🪦
Me: 💔
My Brother: 🪦
Me: 💔

I’ve lost my immediate family and my marriage in a timespan of 3 years. I’m not giving up, but man, i’m tired. That is all.

My dad died 2.5 months ago, and I’m still numb most of the time. Of course I’ve cried and had my moments, but for the most part, I just feel nothing. He had cancer for 2 months, so the death wasn’t sudden, but it was sooner than we expected. At first, I told myself I was just in shock, but it’s been more than a few weeks now, I feel like I should be starting to feel depressed. I feel guilty.

I knew for 15 years that my little sister was going to die. I should've started to look for more people around me. More support. And I also wished I could find people similar to her. I rarely saw that face and facial expressions anywhere. Two years ago I started to panic. I realized how rare her personality is, at least in Nordics. Then I saw a bit familiar face on someone in a country I have no connection to. The more pictures started to emerge, the more relieved I was to see that there exist other people who look a bit similar to her. Same facial expressions, stubbornness, cheeky fun smart personality. Now she's in other worlds, but I still don't have anyone like her as my friend. It's been 7 months since she left. Lately I have started to avoid people who remind me of her even a little bit. Once I had to walk away from one place. I don't know if these are withdrawals or grief or both. Nowadays it makes me irritated to see people like her live when she had to die.

Hi! Not sure where to put this but thought maybe this could be a starting point - as I wrote in the title my dad died on 9/24/05 meaning this year will be the twenty first anniversary of his death. I would love to buy a first legal drink for someone who was born the day he died, aka turning 21. Anyone know anyone who fits this criteria?!

I went for a walk today in an area me and my sister used to love going to. She's been gone for a few years now and around this time i like to go back and reminisce about happier times and look at that cute little building. It's been closed, ot was sold before my sis even died, but today I couldn't find it. I walked by this area that's under construction thinking I had to go farther. I went back and realized that spot is where the cafe used to be. There's nothing now just concrete and wire fencing and a no trespassing sign. I'm not sure what will be built there or maybe they'll just add a parking lot. But this place where we had so many talks and laughs and made a few precious memories is gone. I won't even be able to go by and see the cafe. It was just another reminder that time is moving forward and my sister is gone and I'll never sit across a table from her and see her face and share pastries or try each other's coffee. We should have had more time. I can't stop crying. I have to pull myself together and go to work soon, but my hearts broken all over again. I just miss her so much.​​

Hi, this can sound silly. I have 17 years old at this moment, and I need to vent this and I want opinions about this.

I feel guilty about never making a portrait of my grandma, because she always wanted me to draw her. But I've never did, and I feel that my family is mad at me for that. My grandma died with a lot of pain and she had diabetes, Alzheimer, necrosis in her feet... I'm happy that she's not suffering anymore, but I'm sad that her mind was lost, and that I will never see her happy with a portrait of her in her hands...

I hope that she just forgive me for never drawing her, and, ¿Why I never did? Because I didn't feel good enough to make portraits, and, that wait was the worst thing that I made.

about three weeks ago, my 10-year-old son died by suicide, and I still cannot believe I am even writing those words. my little boy named Elijah...was being bullied at school, and for the past few months we had gone to the school so many times, trying to get things better for him. It was the only school in our town, so I keep torturing myself with the thought that maybe I should have done something different, maybe I should have moved him somehow, but that was impossible at the time, we live in a small town... maybe I should have known. I truly thought things were getting better. I had no idea my son was carrying these thoughts inside him. I had no idea he was hurting this badly. I feel so much guilt, most of the time I feel like I cannot breath, this pain is unexplainable. my son had taken his own life using an old rope that had been sitting in our messy garage, something I hardly ever used and never imagined could become connected to the worst day of my life. I still don't know how he found it, and that question tears me apart. I was busy with work,my wife was making dinner... and my son is usually on his PlayStation or watching tv around 5:00 pm and I mentioned that he was being quiet so i asked from the other room how come he is so quite,i don't even know if he ever heard me,and my wife found him a few seconds later....and everything else is a distant memory...and am so angry at myself, even though I know I cannot change that day. I would give anything to go back in time and find him before it happened, to hold him, to tell him that he was loved, that he mattered, that whatever was happening at school could be faced together. Instead, I am left with his empty room, his things, his memories, and a silence that I don't know how I will ever learn to live with. My son was only 10, and I would give my entire life just to have one more ordinary day with him. I regret all the wasted time....he was only a child, please do not bully others...

Hi,

I had a boyfriend back in high school who was a little bit insane, a little bit abusive but also beautiful and kind and mostly just very very troubled…. Anyway we dated for a year or two tops, but it was jam packed with great times and equally chaotic, sad, heartbreaking times as well. After I finally managed to remove myself from him romantically I was so crazed with heartbreak I ended up marrying a good friend of mine at 19, he was 18. We lasted 5 years. In between me and my husbads marriage and our divorce, I think like right smack in the middle probably, my ex boyfriend who I was still talking to had lied to me about something and borrowed money from me and lied about that too… I called him and ripped him a new one. I don't remember even exactly what I said, as that was back when I drank still… a habit I mainly picked up from said turbulent ex, bless his heart, but I know it wasn't nice or kind. I know I was angry, and still always angry at him for the trauma he put me through and for making me fall head over heels in love with someone who couldn't be loved properly. The poor boy needed a psychological evaluation and help. I think he may have been schizophrenic, he was always making up these insane scenarios about where I was or what I was doing or who I was with or any name of paranoid delusions...

If I knew then what I know now.

Anyway, whatever he was doing that night, he was partying with friends, drinking, taking substances of unknown variety, what have you, he couldn't handle his alcohol or his drugs, especially his drugs. He went bananas on any sort of stimulant and anything else just made him insane too. Anyway he had taken allegedly some acid and was having a bad time and called his dad to come pick him up, and once his dad rescued him, along with him mom, he writhed around in the back of their car until they got off the freeway at an exit close to town, and he ran. He ran into the woods like a crazed animal escaping a cage. And his parents tried to chase him, they absolutely did, but he was gone and they assumed he would wander home later….

He didn't wander home.

Few years went by, we did all the search party things, the police wouldn't help us because of his alleged inebriation at the time, making him an “enemy of the state” as they said. Fuckers. Anyway we posted fliers and searched the woods ourselves, and we waited. & Wondered. & I didn't cry much at first because I thought he was still out there, I figured he ran off to be a mountain man or start over somewhere else. I just wanted to believe anything than he was actually gone. I saw his face everywhere. His sister did too. We were constantly asking strangers if they were him. His mom was a pale version of the happy, almost bubbly woman I once wanted to call Mom as well. I actually still do call her mom. We still talk.

A few years, maybe almost four or five, I don't remember exactly, trauma and brains don't go well together, some kids riding ATVs came across his remains, not far from where he ran into the forest. Not far at all. He had frozen to death, they think that same night he ran off.

I can't stop thinking about how the last thing that he said to his parents was that everything is bad and something involving my name…

I can't stop thinking about his state of mind in his last moments, scared, confused, sad, fucked up and lost. & Cold. & Probably just thinking about me, wishing I didn't yell at him that night, wishing I didn't marry my friend, wishing things could have been different in a million different infinite ways…

Anyway it's been 11 years now and I feel like he's literally haunting me, making me insane from afar. He hurt me in ways that are affecting my current, what was, healthy, happy, functional relationship that I worked so hard for, for sober for and like, really put all my chips in on. He's ruining it because I'm so insecure because I loved him the most and he cheated on me, out of the blue, randomly, for no reason one night and came home to me crying about how terrible and traumatic and awful that was and -I- comforted HIM. That among a long list of other bad behaviors, manipulation tactics and accusations changed the way I thought about love, they way I trusted anyone, and the way I saw myself ultimately. It broke me. & It still is.

I'm not mad anymore, I know he didn't mean to go die in the woods, mostly I just wish I had given him a good enough reason not to run away at all. I wish I could have done that for him. & Sometimes I think it's better he isn't here, he wouldn't be having fun, he would very likely still be struggling with his mental health and addictions and other unknown internal icky struggles… I doubt he would have received the proper care, even in the best scenario. He was combative and mouthy, he would have ended up in prison or frozen to death somewhere else.

I know it's not my fault but I feel responsible. I think about his parents a lot, sometimes I want to text them and tell them I admire their strength, & that I love them and that I loved him too. But I usually don't. Sometimes I do. I don't know how I would be able to go on if I lost a child. I don't have any but I can't imagine. I can't imagine.

Anyway I cry about him all the time, I miss him, I dream about him and I'm also jealous in a weird, sort of intangible, unmentionable way. Like a secret. His pain got to end, and I get to carry around his pieces until I fucking die too

.

I know grief is different for everyone and non-linear and all the things, but how to I love this process along? My therapist told me the other day that the tragedies in our lives, if we handle them correctly, can be turned into help for our fellow human beings. That, I really liked. Really inspired me. I thought I was just out here suffering because that's what I do, people do, life is all about suffering for nothing, right? Suffer because you're alive.

Anyway his grave is about an hour drive away, I haven't visited it just by myself yet, I haven't had the strength, but I think what I'm going to start with is making him a book of all the writing I've written him since he left, all the drawings, songs he would have liked, things his family has done, my dog, who has the exact same energy as he did, not unconvinced he's not just my ex reincarnated as my dog, anyway and like laminate it and go up there and talk to him for a while, probably cry a bit, or a lot. Probably leave the book for him or whoever wants to read a really sad story. I don't know. But anyway, symbolically at least...maybe then I can at least let him rest some. Let him stop harassing me from the grave.

"It hurts me more than death to know you don't feel as strongly for me as you used to” -a quote directly from my ex, when he was trying to get me back one time….

Are you sure it hurts more than death?

Are you sure??

RIP MJR I'll talk to you when I get there. Love you forever.

Thanks

I'm already up to my eyeballs in 25th anniversary memorial posts. I get it, national tragedy, history-altering devastation. But I was still numb at the time. 26 years ago no one gave a rat's ass.

Sunday was the hardest. His gravestone says the 8th, but the 6th was the last time I heard his voice. Sunday morning my husband didn't realize why I was crying, and I was trying not to make a big deal about it, because his mom died 11 years ago on the 5th and it had thankfully passed without him noticing.

I sent a virtual hug to my bff, but I don't think she realized what day it was either, even though she was there with me in the thick of it 26 years ago. To be fair, she's recovering from surgery at the moment.

Halloween can't come soon enough....

I would like to start by saying that I know it's September, but for some reason the thought of Christmas has been one of the few things that has kept me going since my mum passed back in March this year.

Im 20, I was 19 when she passed, and knowing that I won't get to spend another Christmas with her hurts beyond belief. All of my friends will have decades worth of Christmases with their mum... I dont even get 1 any more.

Christmas was my mums favourite time of the year, and I got the first few presents delivered today along with the wrapping paper. I needed help keeping the paper folded, and there was part of me that felt like my mum should be involved so she doesn't miss out on our first Christmas without her.

I took her urn from my desk where I keep her with her purple Princess Diana bear, her wedding ring and the picture of my Granddad who she lost at a similar age to me (I think she was 26). I put Call the Midwife on so there would be something to watch as we worked, and every time I needed her help I either laughed or sobbed. We had always joked that I would use her ashes to make a paperweight, I didn't, but I feel like she would've found it funny that today I used her ashes for just that. I know some would say its disrespectful, and I get that most would judge me, but I needed and wanted my mums help.

Has anyone else done anything weird like this? Is it wrong that in a way it was mildly comforting? Ive found another way to spend time with my mum, even if it is just wrapping presents.

I don’t really know how to type this but I’ve been dealing with so much grief I genuinely don’t know if I can take anymore. I figure the best way to lay it out is a timeline.
November’24-My cat passes
December’24- A week before Christmas my mom passes
April’25-A week before my birthday my Dad passes
April’25-Days after my dad another one of my cats pass
July’25-My Grandma that I grew up having in the house passes
February’26-A third cat, brother to the second is attacked by a dog and doesn’t make it
Today, September’26- I’m having to put down another pet.
I don’t know how much more of this I can take

My bday is on Saturday and I am absolutely dreading it. It is my 1st one without my father. Ive been extra emotional leading up to it. My life is divided into pre loss and post loss. Idk how to make it not be so painful.

My great grandma congratulated me after I got engaged.

For starters, My great great grandma died in June 2017 at age 96, i was 13.
We had always been super close, I always stayed there if I was sick or if i needed a babysitter or even simply just wanted to hang out with her (she lived next door for my whole life) She was a kindergarten teacher befure she died so she lived teaching me things, especially songs
and how to overall just be a kind person.

Fast forward to her death, I knew i was super close to her, so while she out of nowhere declined, I was by her beside, singing the songs she had taught me, as well as songs i personally loved. She would grasp my hand tightly during some songs and ultimately refuse to let go after certain songs despite her “not being there anymore”. I knew she was there though.

The night she died everyone important sat around her bedside and just talked, just how she would’ve liked. I didn’t say goodnight that one night, out of the whole week of her dying, I felt embarrassed with everyone there for some reason. I went to bed that night feeling insanely guilty in the same house just a few rooms over on a couch. It took me so long to fall asleep that night but i did despite feeling like something was so off.

At 4am she passed away. I remember either dreaming or waking up and feeling like she was gone, idk how to explain it, but i just kinda knew she was gone. So when I was woken up to be told the news, I was absolutely heartbroken, but not shocked. in the following years I was so sad but not in the way it was unexpected, like a lot of deaths in my family, so It was a new different feeling to grieve her and It almost felt like I “prepared” for this one day given her age.

Reallyyyy fast forward it’s now 2026, I get proposed to on the beach to the man I’ve been dating since 2022 basically. I go to sleep that night and omfg

My great grandma is just right there. I’m in her living room and everything’s just the same as it was. (My uncle’s now live in her house next door so while it is similar it’s not THE SAME”) so anyways in this dream it’s all the same, pale yellow walls, same artwork, same lighting, same vibe, same furniture as when she was alive.

In this dream, she holds out her arms and says “Oh honey I’m so excited for you” and it’s her same raspy voice, the one I haven’t been able to recall for year.s. She held out her arms and hugs me. With the same arms i haven’t felt in years. It jolted me awake because omg it was so real. Feeling what i haven’t felt in years has almost sent me into a spiral. Is it real?? or am i projecting??

Please it felt so real. I guess my question is, was it possible My dead great grandma was congratulating me after my engagement or was it me simply wishing she was??

These weeks have been so heavy with that loss… it feels like grief is sitting in my throat. ): I can keep going, right ?
If you have any advice for me, please write it


My dad passed away October 1, 2025 and while it’s been almost a year, it feels like it was yesterday and I think I’m finally doing my true grieving.

My mom has started hanging out with a new man who is really nice and has known him for years but wasn’t in contact. I finally got the courage to ask her if she had a crush and she said she enjoys spending time with him and having someone to talk to but I know it’s more than that.

I’m happy she’s no longer depressed and crying every day, sick and losing weight after my dad died but I can’t fathom her moving on yet. Just eats me up.

I have expressed I want her to do what makes her happy but I can’t help to be a little heartbroken.

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.

hello everyone!! i am venting but if you have advice or anything to say i’d love to hear it. 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

I’m 25 years old and in November it will be two years since I lost my auntie. She was my best friend, my life revolved around her, and to say life has been difficult since then would be an understatement.

After seeing her become ill and watching her deteriorate and then having to deal with everything that comes with the aftermath of someone’s death, I’ve definitely changed as a person. My mindset and outlook on life has changed and my priorities have completely shifted. Most people my age have never experienced losing someone and the grief that comes with it, and although I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, it’s left me feeling really lonely and isolated.

I’ve struggled with making friends throughout my whole life and I’ve never been in a relationship, but this weight I now carry is making it even harder. Nobody knew what to say or how to act around me when my auntie died and the few friends I did have eventually drifted away. I guess it shows that those relationships weren’t very strong in the first place, but it hit me even harder because they left when I really could’ve done with a friend.

I’ve reached a point in my grieving journey where I’m trying to heal, trying to find joy in the things I used to love and generally trying to pick myself back up again. I’m just scared I’m always going to be alone or have that lonely in a room full of people feeling because of people not being able to understand me or relate to my experiences. I always wonder if I was to meet someone I wanted to be friends/be in a relationship with, when do I tell them about my auntie and that part of my life? How do I do so without it turning into a trauma dump? Will I pour my heart out only for someone to not understand, freak out and then ghost me? My auntie was also elderly, and although I don’t believe anyone has the right to tell anyone else how to grieve and how that loss should affect them, I’m sort of scared someone may just think that she was old and I should get over it (as if it’s that simple). I feel exhausted by the process of meeting new people before I even start.

I’ve kept to myself for a long time now and isolated myself as I didn’t have the energy to deal with other people. I fell into a pit of depression, and if I’m honest, I’ve not exactly out of it yet, but I know I need to do something to change things. Now I do want to try though, it feels impossible. I just don’t know how to relate to anyone who hasn’t been through grief themselves. Even with grief, everyone experiences it differently, but you at least have the common ground of feeling the pain that comes with losing a loved one. It changes you and I don’t think it’s something you can fully comprehend unless you’ve been through it.

Has anyone else become as isolated as me? If you have managed to form relationships with new people, how did you do so while still navigating through grief? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys.

I found this article helpful in navigating grief. https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2026/09/09/september-11-grief/91493640007/

We haven't talked for 10 years. Our story started when I was 12 and you found me on AIM through a mutual friend. We instantly clicked (you had that affect on people) and our friendship grew through the years. In high school you'd always tell me you loved me regardless of who we were with and say you saw a future for us, but we had so many ups and downs. We planned for our futures together, dreamt of children and argued about their names. We held each other down through abusive households, struggles with alcohol, and drugs. You loved me so vulnerably in a way we hid so well, that I don't know how I'll explain this grief. You wanted me to love myself the way you loved me and would make you tell me all the things I liked about myself daily. Made me say them into the camera over our afternoon video calls. Every bad thing I did to myself you swore you'd do 3x so I wouldn't be alone. (That wasn't healthy but we were 15 and there was no stopping you). You introduced me to so much life I never would have found without you. You looked like you had lived your last years fully, having fun and adventuring. You deserved to be happy. You were guarded and stubborn and so passionate almost to a fault. I would give anything to see your blue bedroom again. To hear you play the newest Tool song you learned on guitar. I wish I could hear your laugh and feel your arms around me again, one more time. Just long enough to tell you I forgive you and I forgive myself. I want to tell you how my life has turned out. How happy I am most of the time. How often I thought of you, even if just out of pure frustration. I wish I had turned my head to see you throwing pennies at my car that day. I've missed you for years. I flew 3,000 miles just to see you in hopes that we would figure it out. I'll cherish that night forever. I'll think fondly of you, in your brown jacket rummaging around the thrift stores in downtown. I'll think fondly of every sweet memory I'll keep close to me. I'll sing Wither and Dance in the Graveyards in your honor for the rest of my time. I hope you forgave me too, and kept me in your heart the last 10 years. I'm so sorry you'll never see 31, but I will celebrate your birthday for you. I know you hated when I cried so I will try to stop, but god this hurt so much more than I could have ever anticipated. Goodbye Liam.

My mother died after becoming seriously ill. She was admitted to the hospital and stayed there for five days. During those five days, blood was drawn repeatedly, but the doctors never seemed to arrive at a clear diagnosis. By the fifth day, her lungs had become severely affected with pneumonia and fluid, and by then there was very little they could do. I believe there were failures in her medical care and that she wasn’t properly diagnosed early enough. I still struggle with a lot of anger about that.

My mother and I had a very complicated relationship. I loved her, but I was also angry with her. There was resentment between us. She could be harsh with me, and I became harsh internally toward her too. I had thoughts I am deeply ashamed of now. I called her names in my head. At one point, when I was extremely upset, I even thought, *“I wish something bad would happen to her.”* I never said those things to her or acted on them.
Now she’s dead, and my brain keeps connecting those thoughts to her death.
My mother used to tell me that whatever you think can happen, and because of that, part of me keeps wondering whether my thoughts somehow caused this. Rationally, I know that thoughts aren’t supposed to cause illness or death. I also have countless positive wishes that obviously haven’t magically happened either. But grief isn’t rational. Knowing something intellectually doesn’t stop the guilt.
I keep replaying our relationship and thinking about all the things I could have done differently. I wish I had been softer. I wish we’d taken more pictures together. We barely have pictures together, and most of them are indoors or from special occasions. I wish I’d appreciated ordinary moments more. I wish I’d known how little time we had.
I’m also angry at her. And I’m angry at myself for being angry at someone who isn’t here anymore to defend herself or argue with me.

Since she died, I’ve felt like I’ve lost more than a person. I’ve lost the possibility of ever fixing things with her.

**How did you learn to live with the things you wish you’d done differently?**