-
All that I Lost in Grief
These two years have been marked by pain and a deep sense of un-rootedness. In losing my father I lost not only a parent but a foundation, a source of love, and the family that I once knew. Death creeps in like the water of a flood and always threatens to crumble all that you…
-
365 days of grief
One year. One year since I watched my father, the light of my life, take his final breath, and with it mark the end of a chapter in our lives. A new chapter began, that day, one that has since been defined by immeasurable pain, longing, and irremediable regret. Yet it has also been a…
-
Learning to Sit with the Pain of Death
Some days, when I wake up, I don’t have the energy to move beyond the weight of my father’s death – and after nearly 9 months after his death, I have learned that the best way to handle such days is to let myself accept and sit with every inch of the pain.
-
The Heartbreak of Losing a Parent
For some, Father’s Day is a day of memorial and a resurgence of grief.
-
Seven Months After my Father’s Death, the Pain Grows Deeper Everyday
It has been nearly seven months since I watched my father pass away. And at the six-month mark, half an orbit around the sun, I suddenly felt something I think all people in deep grief fear: I felt for the first time that I was becoming used to my father’s absence. A month and a…
-
Notes on the Inescapable and Irremediable Solitude of Grief (and learning to cherish it)
When my father died, so did a part of myself.
-
Waiting for Death to Come: my experience with anticipatory grief
In October, 2019, my father was diagnosed with a very rare and terribly aggressive brain tumor which would come to claim his life three years and a month later. At the time of the diagnosis, I was 19 years old. After receiving a first batch of treatments in 2019 and the beginning of 2020, my…
-
Every Day I Wake Up and You’re Still Gone: on the ugly side of grief
Yesterday morning as I opened my eyes I immediately felt the horrendous weight of grief, death, and loss. This weight pulled me down and erased my desire to face the reality of a world without my father. I knew it would be a terrible day…
-
An Open Letter for my (late) Father’s Birthday
My name is Soline Van de Moortele, and I would like to personally thank you for visiting my blog and reading my posts. I am dedicated to creating a series of blog posts on my personal experience with losing my father at 22, as well as provide a platform for other people to share their…
-
Grieving my Past Life
Realizing that grief goes far beyond death in life is a difficult realizaton to have. What is tricky about grief when you lose someone you love is that you cannot confront the object of your grief directly, as they are gone. Your world becomes full of the person’s absence, but the very phrase hints to…
-
An Introduction to my Grief
3.5 months; 109 days; 2616 hours. These are measures of the amount of time which has gone by since I saw my father take his last, slow and quiet breath. Although I had three years to prepare myself for the possibility of his premature death in my life, nothing could prepare me for the experience…
-
La culpabilité d’avancer
C’était l’une de ces choses que j’anticipais dans mon deuil, sans pouvoir vraiment l’imaginer avant de l’avoir vécue. Les souvenirs s’estompent, la douleur devient moins violente. Le temps agit d’étranges façons, apaisant peu à peu ce tumulte d’émotions si vives au cours des premières années. Et pourtant, il y a des jours comme aujourd’hui où…
-
On the Guilt of Moving On
This was one of those things I was anticipating in my grief, but couldn’t fully imagine until I had actually experienced it. The memories fade, the pain is less violent. Time works in strange ways, and dulls the edges that were so sharp in those first years. And yet, there are days, like today, when…
-
Where do the dead go?
All of us who grieve know how difficult the days – sometimes weeks – preceding and following an anniversary, birthday, or special holiday (such as ‘father’s day’ in my case) can be. It may be the case that you mysteriously wake up one morning, feeling tense, irritable, particularly emotional, without understanding the origin of this…
-
Où vont les morts ?
All of us who grieve know how difficult the days – sometimes weeks – preceding and following an anniversary, birthday, or special holiday (such as ‘father’s day’ in my case) can be. It may be the case that you mysteriously wake up one morning, feeling tense, irritable, particularly emotional, without understanding the origin of this…
A Grieving Girl's Blog 