Grief did not arrive like a storm when my father died. It did not knock me to the ground or leave me gasping for air. Instead, it crept into my life quietly, threading itself through ordinary moments until everything felt subtly altered. It was there in the instinctive reach for my phone when something amusing or troubling happened, only to remember there was no one left to call. It was there in the empty chair at the table during holidays, in the way silence lingered a little too long after conversations ended. My father had never been loud or dramatic in life, and in death, he was the same. His absence spoke softly but persistently, settling into the spaces he once occupied. I found myself remembering him not in grand scenes, but in fragments: the way he cleared his throat before speaking, the way he stood at the window in the early mornings, the way he repeated the same small routines as if they anchored him to the world. Losing him felt less like something breaking and more like something slowly fading, leaving me unsure of when the moment of real loss had actually occurred. Continue reading…
