She carries her parents in her life, crying when it hurts, laughing when it’s good, and choosing, every day, to keep going because love is worth the weight. Grief doesn’t follow a calendar. It doesn’t fade away after a week off work or quietly end at the one-year mark people talk about. There’s no quick fix for the open place loss that leaves a heart.
As one queen once put it, grief is the cost of love, which she has paid many times. Five years have passed since her dad died of cancer, and four and a half since her mom died from a sudden blood clot. She was 21, a college junior, when both parents died only seven months apart. Even now, she wakes up wondering how she ended up so young and already without them. She hadn’t faced loss until she was 19. Then it started in a chain: first her childhood dog, Merlot; a few months later, her grandpa died in his sleep. Three months after that, her dad learned he had terminal cancer. He fought hard, three surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation, and for a while, it looked like a miracle.
He came back to himself: joking, working, hugging tight. The treatment cost him one ear, but not his spirit. Then pain returned, an MRI showed the cancer had spread, and he chose hospice. Six weeks later, he was gone. She heard his last breath and couldn’t make sense of how a body that was alive one moment could stop the next. In the hollow that followed, she leaned on her mom. Her mother brought color into the gray, kindness every day, a quick wit that made people laugh, and a belief in small good deeds. Then, seven months after her dad’s funeral, a sudden pulmonary embolism took her too. There was no time to say goodbye.
In the five years since, she’s learned more about grief and resilience than she ever wanted to know. It still feels both brand new and ancient. She once imagined that by now she’d feel “normal.” Instead, she carries joy and sorrow at the same time. The brightest moments have come alongside the darkest days. Every grin and every tear hold the same thread: love.
Her parents had missed the significant milestones. She graduated a year after they died. She smiled as she crossed the stage, then stepped down and burst into tears. Pride and pain shared the same breath. She landed a dream internship and traveled most weekends. A standby flight sent her to New York, the city at the top of her mom’s wish list. She cried in an airport bathroom, then walked the streets with wonder and guilt pressed together.
She spent five weeks across Europe, tasting food that made her eyes close and thinking of the places her parents never saw. In Bali, she screamed across a zipline and later cried through an entire day alone in a hotel room. Danielle did all she could for a fresh start, from walking an Ilama in the desert to switching between cities. She lost 135 pounds and learned how to care for her health. She was rebuilding a life, and still, waves of grief could knock her flat without warning. She has more tools and community and is better at taking the hit, but the waves still come. At 25, she still needs her parents. She needed their advice when selling their house and wading through probate. She needs them now while polishing a resume and practicing interview answers.
Some days, nothing significant happens, and she still aches to call her mom about the little annoyances or text her dad for the stuffed mushroom recipe she can’t quite nail. She was stronger and more independent, yes, but also brave enough to ask for help when she needed it. Loss has taught her to live on purpose.
Her parents had a dream that would never be finished. She chooses to chase hers, travel, laugh, spend quiet nights watching football in comfy clothes, and have a glass of wine at Christmas so that anyone who meets her meets a piece of them. The best parts of her parents could keep living through her, and that responsibility feels like an honor.
She talks openly about grief because silence makes it heavier. The more people share their stories, the less alone everyone feels. Grief reshapes the mind and heart. Life doesn’t go back; it goes forward, different. And different can still be okay.
