You never truly understand the power of words until they deliver news that changes your world forever. Words can lift you, but they can also drop you to your knees. I learned this when I was at work one ordinary day. The restaurant phone rang, and I answered the way I always did, “Thank you for calling Pizza Nea, how can I help you?” On the other end, my mom said only one word, my name. “Emily.”
The tone in her voice made my blood run cold. Then came the words that shattered me: “Your dad is dead.” I froze. “What? How? No, please.” My legs gave out. My world spun into a fog I couldn’t escape. Six years have passed, and that fog still drifts in and out of my life.
I was in my first year of graduate school when my dad died, and everything seemed to stop and spin out of control at the same time. My first thought was of my younger brother, Matty. He is autistic, non-speaking, and has high sensory needs. My dad had been his full-time caregiver. Without him, Matty’s world and ours, was turned upside down.
Taking care of Matty became my responsibility almost immediately. My mom, my sister, and I barely slept. Days blurred into nights. We lived at the mercy of his restless energy and unpredictable meltdowns. Some nights were calmer, but in the quiet I could feel my dad’s absence most sharply. The silence screamed, and my mind searched desperately for signs that he was still with us.
I found them everywhere. In the last few months of his life, I had started calling him daily instead of every few weeks. The weekend before he died, he came to visit me in Minneapolis, something he hadn’t done in years. My car broke down, and because of that, I saw him one last time. My sister happened to stop home the night before he passed. And his final words to me were in a text that still echoes in my heart: “Goodnight sweet princess.”
After his death, I continued searching for signs. Birds outside the windows, sudden shifts in the weather, objects falling out of nowhere, I clung to these things. Some people rolled their eyes, but I needed them. I needed to believe he was still near. Because how could someone so alive, with his loud laugh and endless advice, just vanish? I thought I had more time with my mentor, my best friend, my dad.
For two months, life was chaos. We eventually found a group home for Matty, but those weeks were some of the hardest of my life. I tried to comfort him through meltdowns that I knew were rooted in the same grief tearing me apart. Meanwhile, the outside world carried on, friends posting about dinners or school grades, while I felt trapped in a reality that no one else could understand.
When I returned to Minneapolis, the isolation grew heavier. People stopped checking in. Nights were the worst. I couldn’t sleep. I missed his voice, his laugh, even his unique little habits and expressions. The pain was raw, like an open wound I had to hide in order to show up for class or work.
I wanted so badly for the story to turn, for things to get better. But grief doesn’t work that way. For a long time, I sank into depression. I had dark thoughts, even visions of ending it all. People told me to be strong, but I didn’t feel strong. I just felt broken.
Over time, my grief didn’t fade, it simply changed. Each year on the anniversary of his death, I replay the days leading up to it, trying to remember him as clearly as I can. His voice. The way he called me “my sweet.” The way he cared for Matty. As years pass, those memories feel further away, and that is its own kind of heartbreak.
But slowly, I began to see grief differently. My dad wasn’t only in the memories I clung to. He was in everything he loved. He was in the first sip of coffee, in every song that demanded the volume turned up, in thunderstorms, in laughter, in nature, and in every person he cared for.
On the sixth anniversary of his passing, my mom, my sister, and I went to Nashville. We danced and laughed all weekend. At first, I felt guilty for not focusing on him. But then I realized we were honoring him the way he would want, by living fully. In those moments of joy, I could feel him with us.
Grief has no cure. Time doesn’t erase it. It simply shifts. I think of it like a worry stone you carry in your pocket. Some days you hardly notice it. Other days you can’t stop turning it over in your hand. It never leaves you, but your relationship with it changes as you grow.
I still cry, I still ache, but I also feel tenderness when I think of him. Grief taught me to love him not just for who he was, but for who he still is in my life. He is everywhere. And though I’ll always carry the hurt, I’ll also carry that love.
