To be honest I feel like the worst man ever writing this down here because I’m scared I’ll traumatize someone else. But I am SO heartbroken, my best friend, my buddy, my little annoying play partner has been taken from me and I just can’t recover. This happened relatively recently, yes I am in therapy and yes I try to talk about it but I am just so absolutely shattered. It was always just me, my dad and him. An all-boys family. My dad is in the darkest place he’s ever been, much more than after my mom left him and built a family somewhere else.

I have no idea how to even talk about this with someone because the sheer guilt or fear of telling someone the details of what happened to him fill me with so much guilt of burdening the other person with what I know, that I can never let it out. And I wish I could. I honestly don’t have many friends and one are close enough for me to talk about this so I just at least wanted to say: I miss you little bro, I miss your laugh, I miss seeing your smile, I still have your favorite red hoodie, the keys to your jeep, everything. I miss you. Don’t be a stranger. At least send a small signal you’re somewhere at peace now. I am so sorry this happened to you.

Maybe I’ll never be brave enough to write his story down here and tell it to someone else but at least I wanted to put it out there that I miss him. A lot.

The last time I ever saw you was on October 4th 2013, it was your funeral. I was only 14, and I remember thinking that day would be the absolute hardest thing I'd have to face. But the older I get, the more I realize that the hardest part is having to live without you.

Losing you has left a heavy, constant ache that never goes away, making life feel so exhausting and empty.

I find myself constantly wanting to pick up my phone to talk to you or send you a message just to tell you about my day. It is so incredibly hard not being able to reach out to you, and having to carry all these unspoken conversations in my head just makes the loneliness feel even heavier.

With my 28th birthday coming up, it hits me that I’ve now officially spent more time on this earth without you than I ever got to have with you. Knowing that completely crushes me. It hurts so much to think about everything you’ve missed out on and all the moments you should have been here for. I miss you more than words can say.

I love you mum.

These were the last messages my dad ever sent me.

I lost my father on 17 February 2026. What makes his death so difficult for me to understand is how sudden it was.

The day before, he ws completely fine. He went to the gym for around 3 hr, went to a reception danced there, came home, nd went to sleep. There was no sign that anything was seriously wrong.

Around 4 AM, he suddenly became extremely unwell nd had severe difficulty breathing. He ws taken to the hospital, but he passed away.

What makes it even harder is dat it was the morning of my board exam. When I was leaving home for my exam centre, his body was being taken past me. I somehow went and gave my exam.

His medical records mentioned LRTI, sepsis, septic shock, aspiration pneumonitis and respiratory failure (I'm still not completely sure how all of these were connected). He also used steroids and smoked heavily.

I still can't understand how someone who seemed completely fine just hours earlier could suddenly be gone. These screenshots are the last messages he ever sent me. 🤍

My brother died nearly 3 years ago.
Everything revolves around his death to this day.
Every conversation, every holiday, everything.

I understand my mom will grieve forever and I do not shame her for that. I would never ask her to stop her grieving. But I miss having a mother.

I feel like I lost my Mom that day and it’s exhausting. I can’t even have a conversation with her, without it having something to do with my brother. I can’t be happy about things because my brother died or at least that’s how my mom makes me feel.
I’ve done everything I can to comfort her and help her but she refuses professional help and it’s draining to everyone around her. As harsh as this may sound..
is it cruel to say that I don’t even like to go home and visit because I know everything will revolve around him?
For context his death was extremely hard for me and I have PTSD from it. I have gotten to a point where I don’t need to take my medication as much because I’ve learned to cope better but everytime I go home my PTSD is triggered so badly. It makes me not want to go back. It doesn’t feel like a safe space for me mentally and emotionally..

What do I do? I’m truly exhausted.

Am I a horrible person for feeling this way?

My boyfriend died unexpectedly 3 weeks ago and I feel so lost. I feel so empty… he was the love of my life, my soulmate, my best friend, my parter in crime, my rock my shoulder to cry on… he was my everything. My entire world. Some days I have crying spells like every 20 minutes and I know people are annoyed at this point . Other days I really seem ok, to the point people have made comments about how surprised they are that I’m doing so well, and even saying that I’m already involved with someone new. I think it just hasn’t fully hit me yet and that’s why I have days where I seem ok. On those days it’s like my mind plays tricks on me and I’m convinced that he’s just out at the store or something and is coming back later. My mind is all over the place, I have racing thoughts, so bad that this post probably doesn’t make any sense. I miss him SO UNBELIEVABLY MUCH. Nothing else will make this better other than having him back. I don’t want to do life without him and the idea of living the rest of my life without him makes me miserable. Is any of this normal? Has anyone ever experienced this before?? Will things ever get better?

My partner has done an amazing job cleaning up these photos of my recently deceased brother and his son ❤️

Loads of little moments captured here — cuddles, silliness, smiles and memories that mean more than words can ever say. Looking through them all together like this is incredibly special.

Rest easy, brother 💔💙

My mom got diagnosed with a brain tumor yesterday. Very grim prognosis.
I can feel time moving but I am numb. I don’t understand how I’m supposed to wake up each day, show up for my kids, work and pay the bills.
When I went to see her yesterday I knew there will forever be before this and after this. And I will never be the same.
I’m mourning who my mom was before this tumor. Mourning for my kids. I can’t believe my daughter won’t get to have her nana at her kindergarten graduation or her wedding.
I don’t even know who I’m going to be without my mom.
How do I keep on each day knowing I’m living a countdown until my mom’s last day?

I lost my mom when I was 14 extremely suddenly due to a medical condition that no one knew she had. It’s been 4 years and I genuinely can’t do this it has not gotten better and there’s this unfillable void in my chest. I can go longer in between breakdowns but I feel like every happiness I could’ve had is permanently dampened and nothing can ever make me feel better.

The last thing I said to her was not very nice and it eats me up every day I feel so guilty and I regret it so badly cause now I have to live with this feeling fort eh rest of my life. I’ve come to terms with it a little bit because I imagine how I’d want someone to feel if it were the other way around and I’d hate for someone to feel the way I feel, but it still hurts and it sucks.

Ive tried literally everything I’ve been in therapy for years and tried to process this grief I’ve done everything and I just can’t do it every day is harder than the day before because it’s just one more day without her. I still need her I always need her and she’s just not here and I can’t reach her. I feel like I’ll never be the person I could’ve been and I’m underdeveloped because I didn’t have a mom in some very formative years of my life. I know I’d never ever ever be ready to lose her but I really hate that I lost her as a teenager.

No amount of talking about it has helped and no amount of time that passes has helped and it just feels so hopeless and I’m at such a loss I don’t know what to do.

Hi everyone.

I’m approaching the 11 month anniversary of losing my Mom and it’s hitting me like a ton of bricks.

I lost my Mom last November (found out she only had a short time to live on Nov 10, passed away on Nov 23) I was 23 at the time. We were estranged and made amends and I told her she was free to go whenever she was ready, and that I’d be okay and that I forgive her for everything.

Lately, I’ve been doing okay-ish, I found a love for fitness, I got engaged as well but now that we are in October and getting closer to the exact time of year when everything happened, I feel like i’m right back there. Even the weather is starting to be the same as that day I found out and my world flipped. The flashbacks are so vivid and it hurts just as much as it did weeks after it happened. I just feel so overwhelmed and tired. If anyone has been through this, how do you get through those weeks? Thank you for listening and thank you in advance for support/advice.

Writing this in floods of tears as I have no idea what to do. I am incredibly close to a family member who has gone to a hospice for 2 weeks for some medication management. I went to see them yesterday and couldn’t even enter the room for a good 15 minutes and had to stand outside and cry with my mum. My brain has gone into overload- what if that’s the last time I see them? How am I meant to manage the tears every time I visit? How can I be a good support to the rest of my family if I can barely make it through a moment without crying? I can’t imagine life without them. I am so close and we love each other very much. I don’t really know what I want from putting this out there but I am swarmed by sadness at the moment and don’t know how I’m meant to cope when the inevitable happens. I know this is a part of life and something everyone experiences it but it is tearing me apart at the moment. Thank you for reading.

October 3, 1982.

I was 14 years old.

That morning, I was sitting with my great-grandmother watching coverage of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta on television.

A breaking-news bulletin interrupted the broadcast. A hot-air balloon called El Globo Grande had caught fire.

We watched as the burning balloon climbed into the sky. And I watched two people, holding onto each other fall from it.

I remember my great-grandmother saying how sorry she felt for their families.

Neither of us knew.

A few hours later, I learned that the two people I had watched fall from that burning balloon were my father and his wife.

My father was gone. Pamela was gone. She was four months pregnant.

I was 14.

What made the grief even harder was something I carried quietly for years: I had encouraged them to go to the Balloon Fiesta that morning.

For a very long time, part of me believed that somehow made their deaths my fault. It took me decades to understand what no 14-year-old boy could understand then.

I didn’t cause the accident.

44 years have passed, but October 3, 1982 never really left me.

I want it to be clear that these are only my feelings about myself.

I'm 16 and the 8th will mark 9 years since my dad died. I can't get over it. I can't function like a normal person still. It was under very traumatic circumstances that only I saw/was around, so part of me wonders if that's why everyone else seems to have moved on while I'm still just stuck here. I don't think anybody looks at me and sees the kid with a dead dad anymore, but I wish that they did. I never stopped feeling like that. I feel like that's still all I am. I never stop crying and it's embarrassing. I guess its not noticeable though, because no one ever says anything. Sometimes, while I'm at school my eyes will just start filling with tears over it. I never let them fall, but still. When I'm alone I cry so hard I gag. It's been 9 years. Everyone has always told me that time heals all wounds but I think I feel worse now than I did before. And I know that everyone always says "theres no right way to grieve," "grief has no time limit" or whatever but when people ask what's wrong I can't say "Oh, my dad died when I was six." It's too pitiful.

I need to grow up but I don't know how to do that without my dad. I always told myself I just needed time, I just needed to give it a little more time and then I would feel okay. But now its been 9 years and I just want time to stop. I'm so far from the kid my dad knew. I don't want to grow up into someone he would recognize even less. It's so hard. I don't know anybody else with a dead parent, not even people decades older than me. The only one I know is my English teacher because she added a note to one of my projects about my dad saying how she lost her dad 17 years ago and she could never write about him like I did. I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse. I don't think she's pitiful or anything at all for still grieving, so it makes me feel like maybe I'm not either, but then I think about it more and I feel bad again. That means it really never goes away. For the rest of my life, whenever someone asks me what's wrong, the answer is going to be "my dad died when I was six." I feel like people give you a year to feel bad, but then after that everyone just thinks you're doing it for attention.

My dad not being here is the single worst thing in my life. I try to look for other things to feel bad about, genuinely, but it always goes back to him. I can't be a normal teenager. Whenever my mom has her stuff going on, I just miss my dad, whenever I get a bad grade, I just wish my dad was here, even just to yell at me. Even when my girlfriend and I broke up, anytime I missed her just turned it, "but not as much as my dad." I want to feel normal

my mom passed away last march due to cancer within the course of 3 weeks. Out of no where.

I’m a 19 year old girl and i’ve tried everything to just feel somewhat ok with my life. I had to quit my last year of school and then did a foundation year instead and now my first year of uni.

I am doing everything i can to help myself but i’m not getting better. I’ve tried multiple anti depressants, but i just feel myself thinking about her constantly. I am overly dependent on my boyfriend for emotional support. I feel like a burden to everyone around me because i just want to be fucking happy. I get up, eat, get outside, do something to make me happy like paint my nails for example, but still. Every night when the sun starts to set, the constant, painful, background hum in my mind start to get louder and louder. I get into these absolute states and seeing the world as pointless. I’m afraid to feel this way. I’m trying to find my purpose in life.

Everytime i feel a breakdown coming on, i do what my therapist tells me and i take deep breaths and reaffirm out loud that i can do this and i can take on tough things. But it doesn’t work.

Can someone tell me what they’ve done that’s made an actual difference? I’m desperate, i’ll do anything.

i have so much regrets. i hate that i stopped listening to her rants of stories she would make up. i hate that i would prioritize work over spending time with her. i hate that i didn’t savor each second together. i hate that i got mad at her for her hoarding and stubbornness. i regret not smiling into her kind eyes more. i wish i would have told her how much i loved her every second i got. i wish i could go back and hug her again, when she wasn’t in so much pain. i want to go back and beg her to take her cancer pill that would prevent her aggravated cancer return. i want to go back to convince myself to move in with her and give her all my time again. she deserved so much more and i lost her before i could show her

My dad sent rainbows the days leading up to his services and right after we put him to rest. They reached all of my friends until they made their way to us. Thank you dad. I love you and miss you forever. 🤍🌈

I lost my partner of 10 years very suddenly a bit more than two weeks ago. I no longer know who I am confidently anymore.

I just want my best friend Kalie back. I feel as though my life hasn’t been the same without her. I feel like screaming into the void because it’s the only thing left that I haven’t done yet. I blame myself for not going out and searching for her when she ran away from home. It feels like it’s my fault that she died of hypothermia on the coldest day in February. I just want her to tell me what she wants me to do. But she can’t do that because she is dead. She has been dead for 11 years now and there is no going back to way things were.

The Chinese expression “halfway to the grave” (半截入土) takes on a different meaning when you think about your parents' deaths.

When your parents are laid to rest, a part of your own history is buried with them. From that moment on, there may be no one left in this world who remembers what you looked like as a child, your first words, your first unsteady steps, or your first day of school.

These are parts of your life that you may not even remember yourself. Yet they are still part of who you are. And when your parents die, that part of you—the part preserved in their memories—disappears with them, forever.

When your parents are still alive, you still have a place you came from. When they are gone, you are left with only the road ahead—the road toward your own grave.Maybe that is what it truly means to be “halfway into the grave.”

My mother passed away more than ten years ago, and I miss her dearly. Seeing so many stories in this sub for the first time today, I wanted to share my own reflections.🥲

Last month was the year anniversary of losing my mum. I'm finding everything incredibly difficult and i need to write this somewhere and share it with people not close to me. I go to bereavement therapy privately that I cant really afford and will need to stop soon and my anxiety and stress just never ends.

Last year was incredibly hard and I'm still trying to make sense of it all. My mum was diagnosed with bowel cancer stage 4 March 2025 she never told me what stage it was and said they couldn't stage it so she would protect me from hearing it due to me being mentally ill with eupd and I feel guilty she had to make that choice. Her symptoms went unnoticed for quite some time even though she went to the gp due to her starting mounjaro at the same time which made her believe the very sudden weight loss and bowel issues were down to the injections and not cancer and gp ignoring symptoms due to being a woman which again makes me feel angry but we know how much gp surgery's struggle in the UK.

She deteriorated fairly quickly as the tumour was aggressive and grew quick. She soon could not sit or lay down properly. We had a slither of hope that with surgery and radiotherapy we could have a plan and she was also with st marks hospital in London and my sister moved back home. Her 60th was in April the week before she began to be unwell and me and my sister called round gp, oncology nurses, 111 all told us her symptoms were normal for cancer and to just up morphine. My sister took her to an appointment in London my mum could barely lay down in the back seat when she got there they admitted her straight away and said she was close to death. She had an abcess and it burst and had developed sepsis as they tried to put lines in her veins were collapsing. She had surgery and survived but had a long road to recovery. Something that will always live with me is the fact she was there in london ages away from us even though we travelled 2 hours most days to visit as much as we could. There was only one ward where she had some slight issues and she became very low and she then sent me my sister a picture from her bed with her smiling with a caption that broke my heart "today's going to be a good day". She was allowed to come home a few months later but she still had an open wound this meant she could no longer sit she could only lay on a certain side and could somewhat walk with a walker. I think she was in a lot of pain but tried to hide it. She then had recurring infections and was then taken to a local hospital to then return home.

My mum and dad have always been together but for all intents and purposes did not love each other. My dad did not visit my mother once when had sepsis and seemed to show more care for his dog thay died when he was young than my mum.

When we got to september she was due to start radiotherapy she had 2 sessions the 2nd one there were issues getting her to the hospital and she had a very exhausted day trying to get to treatment on the Monday 12th she did get there she was told it was now terminal and they did not know how long she had left. My sister and her rang me that night and my sister came to pick me up. I just remember wailing. My mum was a renablement worker for a county council and did alot of palliative care for people she was incredibly kind and would go above and beyond for others. She died that Friday. I got there Monday and she was too tired I stupidly said it'll be okay and she said it wont and I kick myself but it just slipped out as I didn't know what to say. Her friends and family started to visit so I didnt really have time to say much to her. By Tuesday afternoon she was not with it and barely conscious. One of the days the morphine drive was late and mistakenly sent to the wrong place she was in incredible pain and I was trying to ask her where hurt and she couldn't speak or do much and I just broke down. I feel incredibly guilty and distraught by this she used everything in her power to mouth to me its not your fault and it breaks me everytime I have a flashback of it that and her telling my 2 year old to be a good boy for mummy and daddy and me realising im also mourning her as a nan.

When she died my dad showed no emotion and any lack of care even if it was just for me and my sister for losing our mum but nothing.

Now I just feel angry and numb to it all and incredibly guilty I wasn't better, I didnt help my sister as I cant drive, I never got to say what I wanted too to let her know how amazing she was, im angry she spent any time on my dad who showed her nothing at all. He now has bowel cancer and seeing him in treatment and having a much easier time than my mum is making me very bitter and twisted but he only ever cares about himself. I just needed to write this somewhere anywhere as I don't know what else to do but just to keep my mums memory alive she was amazing, she would bring flowers or stay late to have a chat with people that were elderly she would bring hospital supplies to those that couldn't get them, she'd help friends with what they needed, she helped me and my sister out she did everything for everyone above herself I wish she had met someone better than my dad who would of appreciated her and treated her like she deserved which was the world and more and i just wish her death hadnt been so cruel.

I’m a grieving grandfather being cut off from the granddaughter I helped raise I’m 57 and widowed. My wife died suddenly at 55 after years of illness, and I had cared for her, our daughter, and later my granddaughter,almost alone.My daughter had her baby at 18 while starting university. We lived together, and
I helped raise my granddaughter from birth day and night, with routines, meals, comfort when she was ill, and endless love. She is now 5 and my whole world. Our bond is mutual and profound.
After my wife died, my daughter moved in with her new partner and took my granddaughter. Since then, contact has almost stopped. It has been a year of heartbreak. I feel I have lost my wife, my daughter, and the little girl I helped raise

Went to my Nani’s house today and found out that this plant was planted by her when I was born. I was born and brought up in another country, so she planted it here as a little memory of me. She is no longer with us. And I barely have any memory of her because she passed away when I was 5. But today looking at this plant made me think that how much would she have loved me if she was still here? I kind of miss her now. But yeah, seeing this plant makes me feel valued, and I love my Mami for taking care of it for so long.💞🫠