My Dad passed away two years ago today. Six months after he passed, I wrote about my grief journey on a Saturday morning in a coffee shop, which felt like a whole therapy session. Sharing it with friends and family also had a tremendous impact on my journey. Since then, I’ve had new challenges, and grown as well.
Grief isn’t something that will be over one day. It’s something you move with. Sometimes one step forward, sometimes two steps back. In the past two years, I’ve noticed myself spending less time in denial or depression, and more time in bargaining. Eventually, in small glimpses of life, moving toward acceptance.
Bargaining
Depression, denial, and anger are like an unremovable filter imposed on the world—color faded, joy dulled, even good moments turned hollow. There is not much you can do about it, except to recognize and be aware of their existence.
Similar yet different, bargaining also acts as a filter, but more on the inner world. It’s the inner voice that needs no triggers. Without awareness, it’s easy to spiral—and be led into any of the other stages of grief.
Bargaining sounds like this:
- If only I had insisted on another doctor.
- If only I had transferred him earlier.
- If only I had done more, said more, been there more.
These thoughts loop endlessly, not because I believe them, but because they offer a kind of illusion: the illusion that I still had control, that I could have changed the ending. Bargaining isn’t just about blame—it’s a desperate attempt to rewrite the story so it doesn’t hurt as much.
In hindsight, I think it was also a shield. When I was busy questioning every decision, I wasn’t falling apart. I was thinking, analyzing, distracting. That spiral gave me something to do—something that felt productive, even when it wasn’t. It delayed the weight of grief until I was ready to feel it.
Acceptance
Acceptance didn’t arrive like a finish line. It showed up in small moments. Clearing out a drawer. Seeing his picture and not triggering emotionally.
I realized acceptance was near during my mom’s recent visit, when we talked about Dad and his stories like normal—what he said, what he used to do, what he liked. Naturally, as part of a conversation, as if he never left.
It’s not peace, not yet. But it’s the beginning of peacefully living with it.
It’s also the beginning of reclaiming life, piece by piece. Letting myself laugh without guilt. Letting good things happen again.
My Mom
My mom has carried the heaviest load of all, dealing with what’s left. She started therapy a few months after he passed, and it has helped her in many significant ways.
Eventually, it helped so much that she started sharing what she learned—first with friends, then with others who needed support. She found purpose in helping, and in doing so, she helped herself too.
In my hardest moments, she became the one who reminded me how far we’ve come.
There’s a kind of healing that happens when you stop fighting what is, and start turning toward what’s next—not in forgetting, but in carrying forward the love, the memories, and the strength they gave you.