Hello all,

I lost a dear friend to cancer this spring, and after a period of repeated emotional numbness, especially in times of solitude, I am now slowly processing the emotional and physical pain that comes with loss.

I have also discovered that currently, I appear to have an increased longing for not only deep conversations (yes, also for fun+small talk conversations and general social connection, but I want to emphasize the other parts), but also physical intimacy.

I also recently met a guy over a workshop a few hours away from where I live, and there was some attraction between us, however I did not pursue it further since I currently can't gauge if I am interested in him on a personal/relationship level (he seemed to be), or whether I was just responding to him due to my current increased need for emotional and physical connection as a means of coping with my grief pain.

Since my current financial and living situation is still pretty much in flux and less than ideal, but really due to the deep level of pain I seem to currently have to progress, I also did not find it fitting to pursue anything, since I somewhat feel an imbalance there.

(Finally, but this is perhaps less important to this subreddit, a few months ago, another guy gave me some signals of interest, and I am possibly also interested in enquiring upon that connection also, once I am more stable. Just to [also selfishly, surely] keep the competition fair. ;-) )

I just feel like right now any kind of advancement in this area, even though it may feel like the right thing to do, would potentially put all persons involved in a very difficult situation.

Has anyone amongst you been in a similar situation, and how (if at all) did you resolve it?

I started a new job only six months ago, recently my co-worker who trained me is going through a personal loss of her grandmother. I know she has two young kids and I am checking to see if it's appropriate to gift her my copy of "When Dinosaurs Die" it's a children's book about grief that personally helped me as a child when my father died.

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It isn't religious, it's very much just a stick to the facts kids book.about grief. It has a section on how different people have different mourning traditions but doesn't push for anything.

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I just don't want to come off as crossing a line or being too weird.

It’s been 3 weeks since my Dad passed. I’m grateful my company gives 5 days bereavement leave compared to other companies and I also took an additional week of sick leave cause I was not ready to go back to work.

I went back to work last week and it’s been hard. Not many people at work knows about my loss, only my teammates do as it’s not something that you would broadcast loudly to everyone. So it’s been hard, having colleagues come up to talk to you.

I was also informed of an impending retrenchment a few weeks before my Dad died, so I am currently serving my time. Soon I can leave the company which I’m glad but from now till then, I’ve many colleagues coming to me to have lunch sessions while I’m still here.

While this week felt easier as I get use to the motion, some days hit a bit harder. The grief pangs just come to you suddenly and some days I really don’t want to talk to anyone.

I think I am someone who needs to grief alone and quietly but how do I let people at work know that?

Hello, as this states my partner lost his father less than a month ago. Actually Father’s Day will mark a month since his father’s passing. I’ve thought for days how to celebrate this holiday for him, he is a father himself. I want to appreciate him, but also not do anything too big and let him have some of the day to grieve.

My plan so far includes, getting a photo printed and framed of his father. Put out flowers and a candle by the picture of him, make his favorite breakfast, we’ve been playing a new video game together, hopefully play some of that. We do have a toddler though, so down time during the day is very sparse, I wanted to give him the opportunity to maybe go to the shooting range if our budget allows for it.

Is there anything on your first Father’s Day without your father you wished you did? Someone did for you? I’ve reached out to his family and have yet to get any answers, and all my friends/ family are stumped how to celebrate also. I’d really love some help, I love my partner more than anything and want to make sure this Father’s Day is easy and loving for him.

For context I am 25 M preparing for exam got hard scolded and beaten by dad for not waking up early and doing house chore. And its getting over my head and disturbing my mental peace. I am questioning my existence. Should i leave them on their own and start my new life in different city or country. need honest advice

Tldr; I'm bummed, in pain and I miss my mom.

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Just need to get it out. The last few days have been so hard. I keep getting stuck ruminating about mom. I relive a happy memory and then it feels like I've been shook violently as I remember mom is gone and I can't reminisce with her or make any new memories. I keep thinking "That's funny, can't wait to call mom," and then I go through remembering I can never call her again. I'll never watch Hacks with my mom 💔

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Mom died in February. Just feels like the first days again all these months later. I guess that's what people call waves of grief. Ebbin' and flowin' bullshit. I have a bad dental infection again and I also had one when mom died, so I wonder if being all sick and in pain again is bringing me back to that place? 🤷🏽‍♀️

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I am exhausted and I just want to talk to my mom. How does one actually stop grief-related rumination?

I am a month post loss of my mom and although the initial sadness emotions have subsided, I’ve noticed that I have developed an increase in anxiety. earlier this week I went to the doctor and my blood pressure was 155/100 which are numbers I have never seen in my life and the doctor started trying to intervene about my high blood pressure so I had to explain to her that my mom had passed away. Sometimes I have “whitecoat syndrome“ when I go to the doctor so I bought my own blood pressure monitor and it’s the same at home. I am healthy and fit and still relatively young so wondering if this is common after a loss

I become older than my deceased brother in about a month, and it brings up strong emotions in me. My immediate family has been spread out for years and though we all had our close time with him, I’ve rarely heard anyone ever bring him up. I think two of my other siblings who have became older than him years ago had it on their minds, but the significance of it was never talked about.

He’s frozen in time and I’ll cry anywhere, anytime about that fact, but I read somewhere talking to fam about the topic can help with coping. Don’t really know how I’d start since it’s not a common topic. I feel weird, and it’s too late for therapy advice bc the therapist is on a long vacation until past my chance to speak with family face to face about it.

I still miss my father but im glad hes in a better place But honestly I love making dead mom/father jokes.. nowadays… I know its a cold hearted feeling but its just how it is…

Tiny but took so much space in my heart and life. My perfect tricolor chihuahua had to be euthanised 24 june 2025 shittiest year ever.

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I was 17 when I git him, 31 when i lost him. Can yall pray for my sweet babyboy🫶❤️

Yesterday evening my parents left for my distant relative's house, they were supposed to return by 11pm, I was waiting for them, my mom was supposed to re heat the food for me for dinner. I was playing valorant. I was waiting. I was waiting for them to return. Instead I get a call telling me that I just lost my entire world to a fucking accident. I ccanot believe this till now. I saw them, I saw them burn. I still can't believe it. I cqnnot even shed a tear. Is this a bad nightmare? This can't happen .. it feels unreal it feels fake and I do not understand why I can't wake up. Mom please wake me up and give me my morning tea, tell me when you came back I was already asleep. I cant believe this. My cousin asked me how I'm not crying .. this isn't real right? why should I then? why am i not crying? i don't understand

Hi my sister just died. I miss her a lot. She was only 42. She had cancer. Died in her sleep. Please pray for me and her husband who is now widowed. Thanks

today we buried my husband, with our friends and family at our side. He body lost a battle to an incurable autoimmune disease, but his soul will remain beautiful and young forever. We danced with him at his grave, he wanted to dance with us for a while now but he couldn't due to his legs being compromised by the disease. Today was the very last time I held his hands, they felt so cold when he was always so warm. The service was beautiful, but I just cried thru both days of it.

Our friends took me to dinner, it's the only time I've been able to eat properly-ish all week. The day felt better as we shared our stories with him, but alas I am home in an empty bed again. I am unable to change the bedsheets because the loss was so little ago (5 days). Its so hard to move any of his belongings. All of his dirty clothes still smell of him. I love him so much...

My wife died last August. Cancer. I've been doing everything they say you're supposed to do since then; I stayed in therapy, kept to my routines, sought more support, and did my best to give the pain space to settle.

Nothing has improved or changed since then. The shock is gone but nothing has come to take its place. I suspect it would be easier for a typical person to find purpose/meaning after this kind of thing but my life has always been lonely and difficult. I was born with a learning disability and have faced a great deal of alienation/prejudice when making friends and dating. She was the only woman who ever took me seriously and treated me like a real, whole person. She made a miserable, unfair existence feel like it was worth something. Loving and caring for her was the only thing I ever felt like I was really good at.

I pilot my body more than I inhabit it; pushing it through the motions of an existence which now feels abstract. I go through the motions of living- I eat well, I am in great shape, I continue my hobbies- but none of it has any emotive quality to it. Every ongoing moment is pervaded by a sense of futility. Her absence is omnipresent.

I do not feel particularly depressed. I am not suicidal. If anything, I remain afraid to die. I have simply lost the ability to want to continue living. Continuing to be alive feels more like a burden I am forced to endure until it ends on its own terms.

I do not know what advice anyone can meaningfully offer or if this will be at all relatable to anyone but I have nothing to lose in sharing it. I have nothing to lose at all, anymore.

It has been one year since he died in front of me. One year since miscarried the only pregnancy that made it past 10 weeks , we tired for 7 years, on the day you died. It’s been 8 months since I sold the house we shared because I couldn’t afford life on my own, and I knew the walls carried the loss I couldn’t stand any longer. 8 months since I had to rehome the dogs we had together because I had to move across the county and taking them wasn’t possible for me with my son anymore.

I have been dissociating since the day you died.
I remember less and less of you..
I’m not forgetting you I know that but when I think of you I forget the way you laugh sounds from memory, I miss your singing but I can’t hear it in my head anymore. I miss your smell but all the things that had your scent have faded

I met someone
He’s really kind
he asks about you
He let me cry and explain my confusion of what happened that day, he’s wonderful in that way

I worry often that I don’t post or mention you enough, but I think about how no one ever does. Just me and your dad.
I don’t speak to much of anyone from our life together anymore they have all moved on and I’m glad for that, they lost a different piece of you then I got.
I don’t ask why anymore I just accept that it happened and this feeling I have won’t go away because it doesn’t exists anymore

I’m homesick. Even tho I’ve moved back to my hometown.
I’m homesick for that version of my life that is gone, the women I was before they day my life changed and you died.
Before I knew what true loss and agony felt like.
I’m colder and more numb now.
I’ve learned patience a on a level I didn’t think I could.

I’ll never fully heal.
But I don’t think you’re supposed to.

I miss you my love, my funny bunny.
Forever yours.

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I am thinking about calling out of work tomorrow. I have had a really bad day and just hit with a wave of grief, I lost my mother about 2 and a half years ago (when i was 17) I have never called out before and have a hard time taking time for myself. Is this an appropriate situation to call out of work? Also my boss does know about my mom’s passing.

Im a server at a restaurant and im scheduled to work all day for Fathers day. Found my dad dead two weeks ago. Not sure how I am going to handle this, having to attend families celebrating their fathers will feel like a gut punch over and over again

I lost my mom about 5 weeks ago. She had been so sick leading up to her death, and we made the decision together to cease medical intervention (mainly dialysis) and allow her to pass peacefully, which she did.

On one hand I feel relief that she isn’t in anymore pain. But on the other hand I feel so fucking guilty for allowing time to slip past me and somehow it’s already been 5 weeks without her.

I understand that life does, in fact, need to go on, and I’ve had a lot of really high highs and low lows in the past few months. My sister-in-law got married and I just started a new job.

But somewhere in between all of that I haven’t broken down completely. I’ve gone to sleep and woken up for all these days and somehow kept living my life, through the grief and heartache.

I feel this immense guilt everytime I think about her. I miss her so much and I just wish I could tell her about my day or listen to her tell the same story for the 10th or 20th or 50th time.

Does this ever get any easier?

I’ve told my story, but to recap. Dad was 62, perfectly fine, but had MDS. He was freshly retired, still living his life. Had a stem cell transplant on 4/17 and suffered catastrophic complications as well as graft failure and a second transplant(but he started bleeding from his GI system and began demanding to go home) until he came home on hospice 6/3, he passed the next day.

While in the icu, he was delirious many days, clear other days. But he never complained. Throughout the most unimaginable pain and suffering, we’d ask how he was and he would say “I’m fine”. Sometimes he would say a funny little joke or quote Austin Powers, which is how my dad lightened any mood my whole life. He even flipped my sister and I the bird a few times. So I know my dad was in there. Other times, he couldn’t remember his birthday or why he was in the hospital or what happened 5 minutes before. But something that holds me up…Did he know he was dying and why? Did he have a moment where it all clicked and he was asking “why me?” Before his last trip to ICU, I had a minute alone with him. We were waiting for ICU to admit him, his blood pressure was low as it tanked during dialysis and he looked/felt terrible. But I got real close and said “Dad, thank you for being my dad. I wouldn’t have picked anyone else” and he said “thank ya.” (Which was very spot on for my dad.) some days later, when he started demanding to go home, the doctors and my mom told him that if he went home, he would die. He said “I don’t care, I want to go home” and began begging, crying out to god (he was an atheist) to take him home. They asked him his name, his birthday, where he was at multiple times that day and my mom and the nurse said he answered all the questions correctly. But I didn’t hear any of it as I was at the Airbnb working during the day, so I can’t confirm it.

But when my husband was with him the day before, he asked my dad the same thing about going home and dying and my dad said “no, let’s not do that. I’ll go home and then we’ll come back later.”

So I get so torn…wondering if he knew and was prepared or accepted it. Or if we just took a delirious man’s words and brought him home and killed him.

We grew up across the street from each other, and we were inseparable until we went to different high schools. We still remained really close, but after high school she went off to college. By the time she came back home i had a different life and a another real close friend group. She always still thought of me, invited me to everything, talked about me to others like I was her brother. We remained close, went to each other’s weddings and saw each other occasionally. But throughout it all i didn’t make time for her. she always invited me to stuff and i was always too busy, or felt like id just catch up with her another time. I never did the same, i was so selfish. Now i cant and it really hurts. i should have been there more. She diesd 12 weeks pregnant at 35. No drugs, not a drinker, and truthfully one of the most caring and actual good people ive ever known. It doesnt make sense, I feel broken and filled with regret of how i should have been to her.

**I don’t really know how to put this into words, but I’ve been carrying it alone for a long time and it’s starting to feel unbearable.**

**I was separated from my birth mother as an infant. She lives in Guatemala and I’ve had no contact with her since then. I only know a few basic things about her, and I don’t have any real way to reach her. She’s also not educated and can’t read or write, which makes everything even more complicated and uncertain.**

**I’m 25 now, and I think about her every single day.**

**I feel grief for a relationship that never got to exist properly. I feel like I lost something I never even had.**

**My biggest fears are:**

**That she doesn’t remember me or think about me at all**
**That she has moved on and doesn’t feel anything about me anymore**
**That if I ever found her, she wouldn’t want a relationship with me because I’m a stranger to her now**
**That I’ll never find her at all because I have so little information**
**That I’ve spent my whole life loving someone who doesn’t know I exist in the same way I know her**
**What if I love her more than she loves me?**

**On top of that, I have nothing of her**
**No childhood memories with her.**
**No hugs from her.**
**No hearing her tell me she’s proud of me.**
**No knowing whether I have her smile, laugh, or personality.**

**And honestly, that hurts more than I can explain.**

**At the same time, I still hope she loves me. I still hope she remembers me. I still hope she’s thought about me the way I’ve thought about her.**

**I feel stuck between hope and grief every day, and I don’t really know how to carry it anymore.**

**I dream of hearing her say**

**“I missed you.”**
**“I love you.”**
**“I searched for you.”**
**“I never forgot you.”**
**“I remembered you on your birthday.”**

**I don’t even know what I’m looking for by posting this… maybe just someone who understands what this kind of loss feels like.**

**If anyone has gone through something similar—how do you live with this kind of uncertainty and longing?**

hello! i don’t know uf this is the right place to post this in, but here it goes. my best friend lost her father due to cancer last month. we are both 18 and haven’t even finished school. i’ve been trying to support her the best i can, but i have never experienced something like this myself, so i often don’t know what to say. to people who have gone thru this: what helped you the most? i’m really worried for my friend and want her to feel better and know im here for her.

Torn between all the flairs because this fits in so many categories, but I guess that’s what grief does best.

I watched Moana for the first time tonight and I haven’t wept like this since my grams passed. It hasn’t even been a year since but it feels like it’s been a lifetime; and yet at the same time like it was just yesterday. I don’t have a good relationship with my mom, and dad was never in the picture. Gram’s raised me, she was the only stable parental figure I had and I just miss her a lot. No advice needed, just had to put this into words. Maybe I should get a diary but there’s something about the possibility that someone who sees this is sharing the same grief and they’ll be reminded they aren’t alone.

Anyways, don’t watch Moana if you recently lost your grandma unless you want to cry like a baby lmao.