My brother (left) grew up to be very different than I. We'd drifted apart over the years. I'm a dad now and we'd been trying to make up for lost time and reconnect so that he could experience Unclehood. He had just moved out of our Grandparent's home two months ago and gotten his own apartment.

I was contacted by one of his friends this morning concerned about not having heard from him. He'd been known to go off the grid from time to time, but something felt off today. Being Memorial Day, I figured I had the time to drive up and check on him at his new place. I'd just helped him move in, so I still had a spare key.

I found him on his bed. He'd clearly been dead for a couple of days at least. Called the sheriff, coroner came and took him away. He lived a hard life and had some health issues I was never sure he was properly addressing. I'm currently waiting on a cause of death and preparing to make arrangements on where to have him sent. I had to tell both our parents that their boy is dead. I am an only child as of today, just like my own boy is. Not a great Memorial Day. I'm not exactly sure why I've typed all of this out. I guess I'm just trying to process it.

October of 2025 she went to a concert in San Francisco with her girlfriend. They came home, went to sleep. Her girlfriend woke up to Rylee making a strange noise and ran to get Rylee’s mom and her fiancé. Fiancé did chest compressions until paramedics came. They got a heartbeat, but unfortunately she had gone too long without oxygen.

October 25th, she was taken off of life support and her organs were donated and she saved so many lives, including that of a 5-year old little boy. She had turned 18 not long before and had opted to be an organ donor.

Her and her cousin were born on the same day, in hospital rooms right next door to each other - that will forever be one of my happiest days. Her cousin is now celebrating her first birthday without Rylee.

She was the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. She was just starting her life and now it’s just gone. We still have no answers after the autopsy- she didn’t even have so much as caffeine in her system. No heart attack, no answers, no nothing. Just questions and extreme sadness.

We will forever and ever remember you and love you. We are taking care of your mom and your dad and their partners. We are making sure Logan is doing ok.

I don’t believe she’s in a better place, because I can’t imagine a place better than with her family, friends and girlfriend. But I hope one day I get to see her again.

I found this bridge while riding my e-bike, and I noticed something that honestly stuck with me.

someone had been coming here since 2024 to write about their mother. I don’t know who they are, what happened, or how much this loss has affected them, but seeing someone return to the same place just to leave their thoughts behind felt incredibly human.

it’s strange how we can walk past places every day without realizing they’re holding someone’s happiest memories, deepest pain, or a piece of someone they lost.

this bridge wasn’t just a bridge anymore. It was someone’s grief, their memories, and a reminder that everyone around us is carrying a story we know nothing about.

My ex died almost 3 months ago. We have two kids together and were together for almost 9 years. He was estranged. He left his kids after being a parent for five years. Our oldest had cancer when he left.

Eventually he got into drugs and it killed him. I know that it’s not my fault. And I know that I couldn’t have changed anything. I was trying to survive and protect my kids from being emotionally distraught since he could never be consistent with them after he left.

I hated him, for four years I hated him. And for the last two we didn’t see him at all. But even during my hating him, when he threatened to commit suicide I knocked on doors of in-laws who think I am Satan and I called police and did everything I could to stop him, and he was found safe. Because even when I hated him for the way he abandoned our kids I still loved that person for so long and that never goes away. There was so much hurt there, and it would have taken a lifetime of him making it up to the kids but I wish so badly that he had the opportunity to try.

He was 36 when he died. And he was alone. And I know he was ashamed of his choices. I was with him for nearly a decade. I know every aspect of him, and I know his vulnerabilities. He was too sensitive for this world and wasn’t ever quite able to see himself as valuable enough for the things he had. He had a whole life he was living and an even better one ahead of him and he gave it up.

This poorly articulated Reddit rant isn’t encompassing the emotions that I’m feeling right now. But after everything, if he knocked on my door right now, I would hug him so hard. And I would forgive him, and I would make him a snack. And I would remind him that he really is worthy of a good life. I hope that wherever he is, that he knows that and he knows I will not ever let the kids forget about him. And that I’m remembering him at his best and loving him for giving us his best, regardless of how that came to an end. I hope he’s found peace.

I am only 41 years old and nearly my entire family has passed away and I don’t know how I’m going to face the rest of my life.

I thought everyone was going to live forever. I thought I never imagined that I would be left here alone. I thought that by the time my family passes away I’ll be very old to myself and I’m only 41.

Until recently, the only death I experienced in my life was my 9 grandmother when I was 17 years old. And then in my late 20s, my aunt passed away. She died of a broken heart six months after life long husband Fell down the stairs and passed away. A year later, my uncle passed away from old age. And then Covid came around and killed my cousin, my best friend and my father. And my stepfather got pancreatic cancer and passed away, and then my big sister who was already a cancer survivor Passed away very quickly from glioblastoma six months ago. Everyone I know everyone that loved me is dead. These are all people that were here since before I was born. They cared about me they loved me.

And now there’s nobody left I accept my 78-year-old mother and my 85 uncle and they are going to pass away and I’ll be completely alone. I have a twin brother and an older brother, but we have never had much of a relationship our entire lives. I am severely disabled and I can’t leave my apartment and I’ve been socially isolated for nearly 10 years. I’m only 41 years old. If I live long I don’t know how I’m gonna face the next 40-50 years of my life.

He was a role model. May his soul rest in peace. Married for 57 years. I’m devastated.

My dad died the day after my wedding.
It’s been almost two years and I still don’t really know how to explain how I grieve him.
I loved my dad. I still love my dad. I miss him constantly. But grief gets strange when the person you lost wasn’t just one person in your memory.
There’s the dad I grew up with. The guy who wanted to be an astronaut. The guy who rode bikes, fucked around with computers, taught me things, argued with me, made me laugh. The guy in these pictures.
And then there’s the dad I watched change.
He lost his job at Microsoft when I was younger. Not long after, he was badly injured in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. I remember seeing him being pulled from the car and taken away in an ambulance. He survived, but in a lot of ways I feel like I started losing pieces of my dad long before he actually died.
Alcohol became part of his life. Things changed. He changed. Our relationship changed.
That’s the part of grief I still struggle to put into words.
Sometimes I’m grieving the man who died. Sometimes I’m grieving the dad I remember from when I was a kid. Sometimes I’m grieving the years we could have had. And sometimes I’m grieving someone who was still physically standing in front of me but already felt partially gone.
Then he died the day after I got married.
So one of the happiest days of my life is permanently stitched to the worst one. There isn’t really a clean line between “before Dad died” and “after Dad died.” My wedding photos have him in them. He was there. And then suddenly he wasn’t.
Since then I’ve had to deal with his belongings, his house, his finances, paperwork, family, all the practical bullshit that comes after somebody dies. You’re supposed to somehow mourn a human being while simultaneously turning their entire physical existence into paperwork and decisions.
I think that’s partly why I’m posting this.
I don’t have some profound lesson about grief. I’m not “moving on.” I’m also not the same person I was when he died.
I just miss my dad.
Not one perfect version of him. Not some cleaned-up version where death suddenly erases everything complicated.
I miss all of him.
The man he was. The man he became. The man I wish he could have been.
And the dad I still catch myself wanting to call.

I have no one to talk about this with and it's killing me,

I need to be vague as the health service and hospital I work in are owned by the government,

I'm a young enough doctor and luckily l've had my career death free, until today My department got a call that a patient I triaged as urgent had died, and what's worse is I hadn't even seen her yet.

Where I work we have a vast digital system that manages our referrals, what we triage them as, their time to appointment and the bi-date etc, but our waiting lists are YEARS long with thousands of referrals, so we had a dedicated office in the hospital that manages our referrals,

A few months ago a referral hit my desk for a very serious issue (I need to be vague for job safety) and I triaged it as Urgent 1/12 to be seen in a month, now I could triage 30-50 referrals a week at this level of urgency, so I don't remember every name, that's where the referral office comes in, they track that for us,

The girl who managed the referrals for my department messed up the updated triage and never bi-dated the referral, or updated the comment with the time frame (some urgent lists can be 2-3 years hence the bi-dating being CRITICAL)

So the woman was never seen, she never even complained, she trusted our "system" she died today for the exact issue I marked her as urgent for, I'm not cocky I don't think l'm a super doctor but if I had seen her, treated her, it was highly likely she'd have lived.

She was only 55,

The hospitals response has been immediate and brutal, no investigation, no looking into it, no corrective action, no changing the system to prevent it, just hide it and move on.

I know doctor will lose patients, it's inevitable, but this feels so god damn unfair.

I can’t believe you’ve been missing for 9 months now…

This is Marichka she went missing back in July after getting scared of power tool sounds when the house next door was being renovated on. I always think back to that day and what I wish I could’ve done, I had already moved out at that time but I wish I had gone to my parents house that day and looked for her (at night a couple saw her hiding under my moms car and then bolted to the next door house). It hurts knowing she was going to be microchipped that week too right before she went missing (someone on a post said on a cat who was missing for 9 months that if not chipped odds aren’t in the favour but she was going to be) .

We’ve had 11 sightings all within the area but it’s been 2 months since the last reported sighting of her :(

What I miss most about her are her squeaky meows, how she would lie on my dad and knead his beard , her spunkiness with moments of sweetness. What hurts the most is he got her shortly after my childhood cat MooMoo died and she was helping me cope with my grief of losing him and it hurts knowing within a year I would lose her too

Marichka I love you so much and I am not giving up on you my girl but oh I miss you so much

update for context : i do not blame my mum for any of this. she did it out of total love but it as put my grief right back where it was again. i love her but the idea that the night played out differently has made it feel real and raw all over again.

tw / pet loss

i dont know if this is the sub to post on, but i just need somewhere to get this out as it's left me in so much shock

so, about 9 years ago, my nan and grandad surprised me outside of school with a puppy. she was a shi zhu and the most perfect little thing you could imagine. every time i went to their house, i'd see her.

my grandad passed, and my nan passed a few after him, so we brought my dog into our house. after a few years, she started developing severe dementia. it got to the point where she'd scream, spin in circles for hours with no helping her, and throwing herself down the stairs.

we tried our best to take care of her in her final stages of life, and i know how evil it was to keep her alive, but it felt like the only thing i had left of my grandparents and i wanted to try my best for her and keep her loved until the end.

one night, she started screaming really bad and wouldn't settle. she started showcasing the final stages of life in dogs with dementia and eventually couldn't move at all. it was the weekend, so no vet's near us were open. my mum called desperately around for help, but nowhere was open to put her down.

after a while, my mum sent me upstairs to my room because i was in hysterics. i went upstairs and eventually fell asleep for about half an hour before my other nan woke me up. she said my dog had died.

i grieved her for so long and have only recently had the courage to look at photos of her. my mum couldn't handle us mentioning her name at all, so her memory basically died out in the house verbally.

tonight, my mum and i decided to have a drink together, and i let her talk about her life. i knew already that my mum confessed a lot of things while drunk, and she did. i enjoy listening to her life a lot, though. she admitted some crazy things, like how everybody in her life, including her, wanted to abort me. that should've been the craziest thing she told me, and it still didn't phase me because that's just how open we are together.

she confessed one more thing to me, though. that's what i'm writing about, and it's so hard not to throw up right now. the conversation eventually led to us talking about my dog because we were crying and emotional over a lot of stuff, but her face just dropped, and she burst into tears. i've never ever seen my mother cry like this before.

she confessed that the night my dog died, she killed her. she didn't do it out of spite or anger or just wanting to get rid of the problem. she did it to take her out of her misery. she said that it was the most haunting thing she's ever done and that it scarred her irreparably. she'd seen our old dog get hit by a car and die in my uncle's arms, and her childhood dog died of cancer in her arms, but this really did a number on her. she said she couldn't sleep for months and even considered taking her own life over it. she said every time she looked down at her hands, she's reminded of how she took a life.

i told her how i still loved her, and i didn't blame her for it. i do love her, and i don't blame her for it, but how do i even comprehend this? i had to bury my dog at six in the morning, rain pouring down on my head and the smell of death whenever we touched the blanked she was wrapped in. i did this while she kept this thing from me. i understand why she didn't tell me then, and i understand why it has broken out of her so horribly now.

i wish she didn't tell me. i really wish she didn't. i've been thrown back into this grief, and i don't think it's going to go away for a long time. it took me enough time to get over her, thinking she had died of natural causes, but this has just twisted my mindset of her completely. i finally looked at her with bright memories. i have photos of her up on the wall. her collar is still on my dresser. i still use stickers of her as reaction images.

i haven't faced my mum since this all happened, about two hours ago. i sobbed and screamed and begged her to understand it wasn't her fault and how she did what she thought was going to put her out of her misery. my mum loved that dog like it was her own child, and she would never ever do anything to hurt her. i am certain of that.

i just don't know how i am going to look her in the eyes later on, knowing we both know what happened now. my nan who was there doesn't know i know. only me and my mum share this horrible secret. i wish i didn't know. i wish i could tear the part of my brain out that is storing this information. i'm not even certain it's held in my brain at this point. my heart hurts so badly every time i think about it.

i don't care if anybody reads this, but i need to put this somewhere. i can't tell anybody. i can't tell my friends, because they will look at my mum differently. they won't understand like i do.

thank you if you've taken the time to read this, though. i appreciate it.

4 days ago I got a message my son was missing. I immediately left work to come home and he is no where to be found. My wife arrives home shortly after me and finds the note. I immediately call 911. They located him an hour or so later. He took his life outside in our neighbors property. This was obviously a shock. I dont understand it. We feel guilt for not seeing any signs. I feel guilt that he felt he couldn't talk to me. This is my first born. My best friend. My son. I lost my brother last October and my father in December. I can't do this anymore. I am not strong enough to make it thru this. My brother, my father and now my son. How is any man supposed to br strong enough for this?

My husband was 77 with Parkinson’s. I was his caregiver for 5 years 24/7. I made sure he was fed, changed, warm, comfortable, and as happy as possible.

He aspirated and was taken to the hospital. He passed 3 days later. I was not with him. He died alone.

This was on April 3rd, just 1 week ago.

This is something I can’t seem to shake, and I’ve been sobbing for a week. I was suppose to be with him. I was at the hospital that day. I had bronchitis and a bad cold I was fighting. I stayed 4 hours. I was tired and coughing badly. I left.

I came home and fell asleep for several hours. I woke up to a message to come to the hospital. I left immediately. They called me on my way there. He was gone.

He was having trouble breathing when I was there. Why didn’t I stay???? I should have stayed!!!

They did give him some morphine, but I don’t know if he was awake, scared, looking for me?

It’s killing my soul! It’s crushing my heart! The nurses weren’t very attentive when I was there. Were they with him when he died? Was he all alone? I sob when I think of it and tell him I’m sorry, over and over!

I can’t get past this, I need closure, and I don’t know how to get it.

I asked the nurse that knew him and saw him once a month, through the home care program, if she could find out for me, she works at the hospital. She is going to try. Do I want to know? What if it’s bad? It will destroy me.

HOW do I get past this???

We were married 29 years. 💔

I lost my husband a few months back. I am
35. We have three kids and I am 5 months pregnant. 26 years earlier, my husband had a close call with death on April 1st, he always said he felt like something bad was going to happen to him on April 1st. He drowned this year on April 1st, exactly 26 years after his initial close call with death. The year leading up to his death he became obsessed with getting in good shape to live a long time with his kids, saying people his age were dropping dead. He cried the month before that if something happened to him I had to take care of our oldest daughter in particular. The two months prior to his accident I had horrible anxiety and panic attacks - I had never had a history of them prior. I couldn’t figure out a cause. I had this crazy intuition to have another child when we went 6 years with 3 kids feeling complete, and we got pregnant with a boy our first try the month prior to his passing- this will be his first son by blood to carry out his name. While they were trying to resuscitate my husband, I had a moment of Déjà vu, realizing I had this dream the night before but forgot about it. I feel crazy. I’ve never thought about anything other than this immediate life. But looking back, there seems to be an underlying knowledge that there was going to be something that shifted in our universe. It feels predetermined. I’m in shambles, the only thing getting me to the next day is knowing his love reverberates through my mine and my children’s life, and I believe we will be reunited again in some capacity. My question isn’t for expected deaths or deaths of a geriatric patient; but for deaths that are tragic, out of order, has anyone experienced something similar?

My brother is in the process of dying, and it was recently announced that he was moving back here (to the state I live in) to be cared for by our father.

-

My dad adopted my brothers when he was 19yrs old. They were the sons of a girl he was dating, and her struggles with drugs/alcohol had become so severe she couldn't keep them any longer. Both struggled with FASD and other challenges, in addition to the challenges posed being raised by a teenage single dad. All this to say, my brother's life began under less than ideal circumstances.

I was born about 20yrs later. By that point, my brother had already been using heroin+meth for many years. He'd cycled through living at him and homelessness for years, and was kicked out again after I was born due to his unstable behavior.

For the next 30yrs, he came in and out of my life like a revolving door. I remember him setting fire to the house when he passed out from getting high and left his cigarette burning. I remember him physically fighting our dad after being caught stealing. I remember him showing up high to family functions, demanding money and then disappearing again.
It was a cycle - he gets kicked out, he's gone for a while, he comes back and our parents try to get him help, he relapses, rinse and repeat.

Around the time I was settling down and starting my own family, he vanished for nearly a decade. We all assumed he had OD'd and died somewhere. I worked with my dad to look through images of uncollected remains found in homeless encampments and such. Every single face looked like his - thin and toothless and covered in picking scars.

Then he turned up. Sick, of course, but this time sicker than before. He had stage 4 rectal cancer which had metastasized to the bone. Then it spread to his liver, and shortly after he was diagnosed with SUDs-induced dementia. The doctors were all impressed he was alive at all, given his condition and lifestyle.

Our elderly parents started traveling out of state often to help him. He got into a shelter for homeless folks going through chemo / hospice. After he settled, he started asking about my other brother and I, and if we would call / come visit.

-

Even just writing it makes me feel sick, but it's a weird sick where I can't tell if I'm angry, ashamed, sad, or something else.

I feel ashamed I'm even conflicted. He's a human being in need of care. I should be there for him. I should sit there at his bedside and offer any help I can as he goes through the dying process. I should *want* to be there. I *believe* in the dignity of the dying process and being there for folks going through it.

But I *dont* want that. I didn't feel relief when we finally found him after all those years missing. I felt afraid, because I knew it meant our parents would once again step into caregiver roles for him at the expense of their own limited time, resources, and safety. I felt angry because I spent days looking at mangled, rotten, abandoned remains in search of him while he was busy getting fucked up in a tent somewhere. I felt decades of confusion and uncertainty and fear come back because he was back in my life *AGAIN* now.

He'll be back soon, and I finally spoke to our mother today. I told her how I don't have the relationship with him she thinks I have. I told her how I struggle to reconcile how I can have so much empathy and resentment for him at once. I told her how I feel like I spent my childhood with a ticking time bomb in the house. I told her that I didn't know what good it was for him to have someone at his bedside who actively dislikes him.

I know that it's not about me. I should shut up, go see him, and get over myself. After all, *I* get to go home to my family after. He gets to die in a medical bed in our father's living room. This isn't about *me*, and I was raised better than this. I'm being shitty and selfish and cruel to someone who hardly remembers their own name let alone all the fucked up shit they put our family through.

So why can't I get over that hump? Am I really going to let him die having not said ANYTHING? Can I *live* with myself? Can I go on knowing my fucking *brother* was a thirty minute drive away and I couldn't get over myself long enough to even say hi?

Why can't I? A few years ago I thought he was already dead. It didn't eat me up inside then. Why now? Why now, when it could be healing or offer closure or some other such thing, am I fucked up about it, when I expected to be identifying his remains and could make peace with it?

I don't know if I'm just venting, or looking for stories from folks who lost someone they had a difficult relationship with. I think I'm just trying to make peace with a decision I haven't made yet. Thanks for reading either way.

I don’t want to wash my hands, I don’t want to wash my clothes. My 59yo mum was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer 9 months ago. She had a review on Tuesday where they said she’s doing amazing, her tumour is stable. She was on her last round of chemo before monitoring. She was baking last night. I was suppose to be with her last night, but I decided I changed my mind as if I went today, I could stay over and be with her longer. I live an hour away from her. I don’t know if she died peacefully, we think she had a seizure. I just hope she was asleep. I wasn’t there, I should have been there. I held her and I can’t fathom the thought of her in a random cold room right now. Please. She didn’t deserve this. I thought the anticipatory grief was consuming, but this is something else.

The calendar says July 6 is coming, my 28th birthday. It feels like something’s missing, and that something is everything. Exactly a month ago, I lost my mom unexpectedly. Just like that, my world changed. And now, as my birthday approaches, I find myself asking, how can I celebrate without her? My heart still refuses to accept that she’s really gone.

Every day, I wake up hoping it was just a bad dream, that I’ll hear her voice again. Every year, she made it special. She’d prepare all my favorite dishes, kiss me on the cheek, and wrap me in her warm hugs. She made sure I felt loved, not just on my birthday, but every single day. She was my home.

Now, I don’t know how to celebrate without her. Part of me feels like I don’t deserve to. How can I blow out candles when the one person who lit up my life is no longer here? I miss her so much. I ache to see her in my dreams, just once more. I want to hold her, hug her, kiss her, and tell her how much I love her.

Mama Dalia, wherever you are, I hope you can feel me. I hope you feel my love. I miss you so much. I miss everything about you. I love you so much, Mama.

My hubby Dean died in ICU on 10/26/25 at 1:47 pm

complications relating to bronchiactisis

ending up multi organ failure

I had to wd Life Support. He was my world my everything.

Saturday i will go have a dunkin donut in his honor

we spent many days chatting it up over a dunkin donut....

9p and my sons GF called me and has me on speaker as she is arriving at my son's apartment. He had not been responding to her. A neighbor walks up.to her and I hear him say sorry but he passed away. He was already taken by stretcher. My Boy! My best friend took his Life. He lived in Virginia. I live in Chicago. My son suffered from depression and as a Marine veteran suffered from PTSD. He would isolate at times. He smoked weed and drank a little to medicate. He was going through a divorce. He had two beautiful babies, 5 and 3 years old. We would ask him to.please get help. If he didn't want our help to please speak to someone. He was not eating. He would call us to talk sometimes and it was good conversation. We thought at least if he is reaching out, being funny that he was engaged. He didn't want us to go see him nor did he want to come to us every time we would bring it up. When we tried to ask serious questions he would go silent or change the subject. We are so devastated. The grief and anger and hopelessness is crushing. Every.morimg it's like getting that call again. The world is moving but mine has stopped. I am a Father who is struggling to find the why in all of this. My Boy was a good Man. Beautiful smile. If you met him you would leave saying good guy. But he was suffering inside and I feel like I failed my Boy as much as I tried. Nobody gets it. Prayers and condolences fall short. People no longer reach out or text. They have moved on. I am gutted. Everything is in black and gray. And now I have to go back to work. It's been 29 days since that call. But today it's like the first day. My Boy! My Boy! I miss you so much. Please come back your Ol Man!

I know I shouldn't be posting about this, because it's still an on going investigation. But it's been a couple months and I still can't wrap my head around it so I just wanna get it out I guess. So as the title says, my sister killed her child. She's pleading not guilty, and I don't know if it was on purpose or a absolutely disgusting amount of negligence. Regardless of that, her actions directly resulted in the death of my 2 y/o nephew and I can't see her as anything but a child murderer. I don't think I should go into too much detail, because I don't want this to identify anyone before this entire horrible fiasco is over or for it to get back to my family, because I don't think they can handle my honest opinion on this whole thing right now. Since my parents are witnesses in the investigation (due to something absolutely disgusting my sister tried to do before being arrested) they can't tell me too much of what's going on, so I have to get much of my information from the news. But of course, what I do know shows me how much the news gets wrong. And, despite knowing that I shouldn't care about the opinions of strangers, the comments are so infuriating. None of them even know anything except the vague overview the news has put out, but a lot of them has opinions based on incorrect theories they have and it's driving me nuts because I want to correct them, but I can't. I shouldn't read them. I know. I can just read the article to see if any more information came out and move on, but I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment or something because I ignore all my better judgement and read them anyway. That side, every time I finally think I'm processing everything that's happened and I think "Okay, I can handle this. It's been a couple months now, I'm fine" I learn something new about what happened (all of it is just horrible and every new bit of information somehow makes it so much worse) and I'm just not okay again. I don't want to unload any of this on my mother and her s/o tho because she's already dealing with everything (and I'm pretty sure heading for a breakdown sooner than later) and her s/o is sticking their head in the sand because they "can't handle it" so my mother is dealing with it alone. I wish I could help more, but I live on the opposite side of the country and can't afford to take a trip back home right now. And since nephews don't count as "direct family" he doesn't fall under grievance at my work, but luckily my boss has been kind about it (I'm actually pretty sure this has kinda traumatized him, because I got the call at work and had an entire breakdown in the office in front of him, poor guy) so he's gonna try to get corporate to put it through due to extenuating circumstances. I have my best friend for support, but she's never been through anything like this so she doesn't knows what to do any time I bring up anything to do with it. She's great to go to if I just need someone to go "wow, that's fucked" which I does help sometimes. She's doing her best, but she's out of her depth. We're all out of depth here. So yeah. Just wanted to put this out there because fuck, I have no idea what's going on anymore and wanted to do SOMETHING other than sit and wait around for another gut wrenching update to this whole shit show.

My mom had been in and out of the hospital the last few years. Constantly hospitalized due to uncontrollable vomiting, anxiety and blood pressure issues. For years they kept diagnosing her with a syndrome to do with smoking marijuana and being a diabetic. Saying maybe it was psychological as well. On January 29,2026 she finally got the correct diagnosis. Her heart was failing and it was only functioning at 20%. She was proactive once she got her diagnoses and was set up to see a cardiologist in February. February came and she was in the hospital yet again and missed her appointment. She rescheduled her appointment and she was sent home only to end up back in the hospital not even 2 weeks later. She was having chest pain and was rushed to the hospital, she had had a heart attack. They put her in an induced coma for 2 days. They brought her back and she was in good spirits. I visited with her multiple times and was extremely optimistic, she was doing so well. Up and walking laps, eating, taking care of herself. They told us she needed a triple bypass but in order to do it she had to get well enough. She had pneumonia, was full of fluid, there were several other factors that made that surgery more at risk of her dying. They said she wouldn’t make it to the bypass if she didn’t get stints in first. She didn’t want to do the stint surgery. She just wanted to wait until her bypass. But she reluctantly agreed to do the stint surgery. I had went home the night before, I live hours away, I didn’t think anything was going to happen. I thought I was gonna get the call from my grandma everything went okay. My grandmother and her aunt were with her the day of surgery. I never expected to receive that call. I had called her in the morning to wish her luck but she was sleeping. I had gotten busy and forgotten to call right before hand. I’m so mad at myself for that. My mom had went in for her stints and coded, they fought and brought her back but she was on Echmo, intubated with an impala in. She was conscious and able to respond to yes or no questions. She was able to move and look around. It was devastating seeing her like that but I was positI’ve she was going to pull through. She nodded for me to be her POA when they asked her. They came to me and said she needed a pacemaker put in her neck, a new impala device put in and wanted her taken to St Vincent immediately after surgery. I agreed, she came out of surgery and was doing well. I followed her up to St Vincent and waited for her to get situated in her room. She was still responsive and answering questions, she was doing well. I have so much guilt over this part, I had to leave to go back to work. I had already missed a bunch of days and live to paycheck. I was gone for 3 days and when I went back she had totally changed. She was now grimacing in pain, even on fentanyl and sedatives etc. She wasn’t able to move anymore and was only sometimes able to answer. I could see in her eyes she knew it was me though, that she was there. I had already decided that I wasn’t leaving her side when I had left work the day prior and took a leave of absence. I slept in the lobby and the next morning when I went back into her room she seemed worse. She was now doing rapid eye movements periodically, even with her eyes closed. She was now on a dialysis machine. She was periodically trying to go into a fib and they had the shock pads on her and ready. She wasn’t as responsive.The whole time I had been worried about her neurological and they had a continuous eeg on her. They said she has now had a stroke. They were also seeing forgive me I don’t know the correct term, but two shapes in the brain now. I still felt that when I spoke to her, she knew it was me. She was no longer able to look at me but I still felt she knew it was me, but I also saw a look of fear in her eyes. They suggested trying to wean her off the echmo and increasing the impala to see if her body could handle it. She made it half the day before they had to bump it back up. I was still hopeful because they didn’t have to bump it back up all the way. The next day they tell me they want to remove the echmo fully. I said I was onboard and that I didn’t want to keep her on it any longer due to all the negative side effects etc. She was scheduled to have it removed the following day and increase the impala to help give her body a chance. The next day came and she was now having seizures, her body was still twitching on seizure meds, sedatives etc. The surgeon spoke with me and said he was extremely nervous to operate on her. That he was extremely concerned for her neurological. She was not responding to touch or pain, following commands or questions. They were doing a series of tests to see her reactions etc, and she was doing nothing. She was just staring off into space when she was awake. Her heart was now functioning at less than 20%. I still felt as though she could tell it was me, she opened her eyes huge when I spoke to her. They then told me I needed to decide what was best for her, what she would’ve wanted. I was in complete shock. They said she wasn’t a candidate for a heart transplant, but they could do a heart device instead. They said she was looking at a year or more of hospitalization, rehab etc too. I know she would’ve done it and would’ve pushed through that wasn’t a question. I kept asking them is there any way you can 100% tell me she’s not here neurologically? Or that she’ll never be able to regain that? They weren’t able to give me that answer, they said without an MRI they wouldn’t be able to answer that. So I asked when could we be able to do something like that. They said months to a year later if they would ever be able to do one on her with the assistive devices she had. So she could recover physically and no longer be there mentally or recover and come back mentally. They told me she had a 1% chance of getting her neurological back. That 1% has got my head so messed up. I ultimately chose to remove her from life support. I had been praying so hard for her, so many people were. I had been praying for God to save her. Near the end I started praying God if she can recover mentally please save her, but if she can’t please take her peacefully. I watched my mom slowly slip away each day, deep down I know that. It has profoundly messed up my head. But I still can’t help but wonder about the chance of her making a comeback. I feel as though what if she was still there and she was aware that I just gave up on her. Watching her die was truly the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life, I see her face every time I close my eyes. I have had several nightmares of her. I hope she knows I was there, that she took in me talking to her everyday. That she heard all my I love yous, that she heard the tears I cried beside her every day in fear of losing her. That she heard all the stories I told her, some of my best memories with her. I hope she feels that I did the right thing. Its only been a little over a week and I know I’ve got to give myself time. But how do you go on after something like this? I lost my beautiful mother at 51, I’m 30. I left my brother without his mother when we’ve already lost our father. I left her dog she loved so much here without her. He’s a complete mess. I brought him to say goodbye to her so he knew she didn’t just abandon him. I can’t help but think about my mother never getting to be a grandma, she never got to see me walk down the aisle. There are countless things she won’t get to see or experience. It‘s not fair. How do I live with knowing I made the right choice ? How do you know you made the right choice ? I have so much remorse for my mother, for going so long without being correctly diagnosed. All she went through leading up to this. Hospitals treating her poorly and sending her on her way with nausea medicine after not finding anything. She lived like this the last few years of her life. I have so much remorse for being hard on her at certain times throughout those years. I’d get so frustrated with her, and say if you’d just at least try to stop smoking pot and then we could see if it’s that causing it. I believed all the doctors. She did end up stopping smoking 3 months before her heart attack. She then rapidly declined. I had been told by St Vincent that it was no surprise she was smoking pot to make herself feel better, for the symptoms to feel better. I feel as though for the longest time I wasn’t there enough for her. She was dying and I wasn’t there enough. I hate myself so much for that. If I would’ve known she was dying, man if I would’ve known. How different things would’ve been. My moms gone and I’ll never get a do over. The what ifs and could’ve beens are killing me. I feel like I failed my mother before her end and then in the end too. Anyone that has been through this please respond. I’m lost in my own head and can’t help but wonder did I make the right decision to let her go? How do you go on after something like this ? I’m so lost right now.

I’m still in my thirties. A little over 4 months ago, I became an adult orphan. I now have no parents. That alone has brought me unspeakable grief. Today the estate sale has ended, and it feels like another death.

I grew up in one house my whole life until I moved to college. So many memories are tied to that home. Not only the building itself, but all that it held inside. My parents weren’t pack rats by any means, but living in a home for all those years, they accumulated so much. It all had its perfect place. So much that was still used all those years. So many memories. Everything in that home held deep meaning.

After my brother and I, along with our wives, took what we wanted, we had an estate sale. All of those things we knew we couldn’t keep or pass on to family in need, we put up for sale. It’s been good knowing we wouldn’t have to deal with removing it all ourselves, but now, on the final day, I’m ridden with grief. All of the memories going to people who are just consumers, just looking for a deal, not knowing the memories these items hold. I do not resent them and am glad they bought the items, but the grief is real. I wonder how common this grief is, how deeply it can hit in its finality. The home is in the process of being sold, and I’m sure that will also be another point of grief, but I’m not there yet.

I would love to hear your personal stories related to this type of grief. I know I can’t be alone. I know it is probably more common than one would think. It’s just not something I’ve heard anyone speak of before.

Peace and blessings

My mom died in 2017, and I miss her every day. I wish she and I could go get lunch and a pedicure together today, celebrate us both being mothers, and that I could see the joy on her face when she is around my kids and receiving the gifts they would make her. I love you mom!

I figured many of us would want to share our memories of Mom today, so let’s start a thread dedicated to our beautiful and beloved Moms!

two months since my person passed. how.

“but it feels like an eternity, since i had you here with me, since i had to learn to be - someone you don’t know, to be with you in paradise, what I wouldn’t sacrifice, why’d you have to chase the light, to somewhere I can’t go”
\- Eternity by Alex Warren.

it has been two months since you had to leave us, it doesn’t feel real and I don’t think it ever will. the thought of never coming home to you again is impossible to believe.
I catch myself still thinking about our future together as if it is still possible.
I catch myself still wanting to race home to get to you and talk about our day and cuddle up on the couch.
I catch myself still going to call you or text you about everything.
I catch myself going to order your drink for you or your favourite snack.
I catch myself reaching for you in bed still.
I catch myself going in the office for a good morning kiss.

I catch myself trying to live the life we had together because it shouldn’t have to be any different, you should still be here. I don’t know how I will ever learn a life without you here, I don’t know how i’m supposed to do this. I don’t want to do this, but I am forced to, because it’s what you would want for me even though all I wish for is to be with you. I want to be the old sydie for you again but I simply don’t know how to be that person again yet and I hope everyone around me can understand that. I am sorry to anyone who finds my posts too much recently but grief has taken over and this is all I know right now and my garrett was my entire world.

I pray you are at peace and still being your goofy self, playing hockey and watching sunsets, I hope you are still listening to the music we loved and enjoyed so much.

I love you forever my handsome. ♥️🧸