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Love, Loss, and the Lessons of Saying Goodbye

On the 13th anniversary of my dad’s passing in January and the 5th anniversary of my mom’s passing this month, I have been thinking about grief.

Losing both of my parents feels like losing the anchors that kept me grounded. The silence in their absence is deafening, and sometimes, I catch myself reaching for the phone, ready to call them, only to remember—there’s no one on the other end anymore.

I was a daddy’s girl. My dad was my safe place, the one who made me feel seen and loved without conditions. His absence left a hole in my heart that time has never fully filled. The years have passed, but I still find myself longing for his advice, his laughter, his steady presence. Losing him was like losing a part of myself.

My relationship with my mom was difficult. We didn’t always see eye to eye, and there were times when the distance between us felt wider than it should have. But despite the struggles, the love was always there—complicated, messy, and sometimes unspoken, but real. And that’s the thing about grief—it doesn’t wait for perfect relationships. It comes whether things were easy or hard, whether there was closure or not.

Grief is a strange thing. It sneaks up on you in quiet moments, in unexpected places—a song on the radio, the smell of their favorite meal, a laugh that sounds just like theirs. It isn’t linear. One day, you feel like you’re moving forward, and the next, a memory knocks the breath out of you.

For a long time, I tried to push it down. I told myself to be strong, to keep going, to distract myself. But grief doesn’t just disappear because you ignore it. It lingers in the unspoken, in the things left unsaid, in the love that no longer has a place to go.

That’s why allowing yourself to grieve is so important. It’s not about moving on—it’s about moving through. It’s about honoring the love you had by allowing yourself to feel the loss fully. Cry if you need to. Scream if it helps. Sit in the memories, even the painful ones. Because grief is love that doesn’t know where to go, and to grieve means that love was real.

I’m still learning how to carry this loss. Some days, it feels unbearable. But I remind myself that grief is not something to “get over.” It’s something to live with, to carry with tenderness, to let shape me rather than break me. And in that, I find a small kind of peace.

Love,
Nicolle


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