Originally published June 3, 2025.
People hear that my father was 50 when I was born and assume I was ready to lose him.
But how can you prepare for the one who held your whole heart?
I was 29 when he died (2017).
We were close. Not just in a father-daughter way but in a way that felt grounded and safe.
He made the world make sense.
When cancer took him it felt like the laws of gravity changed.
I thought that was the heartbreak that would define me.
But then seven years later (2024) I lost my mother.
And I realized…my dad had my heart but my mom had my soul.
I’d been caring for her since I was 12.
Chronic illness shaped our whole rhythm.
Doctor appointments. Meds. Emergencies. Recoveries.
She got sick often but she got through it.
That was the pattern. That was our faith.
And then she got better.
This is her at her healthiest:
No oxygen, walking across town every day (even with two-thirds of a partially amputated foot due to diabetes), doing for herself, spoiling her beloved dog Hannah who I got her for Christmas (and now care for), finally getting a chance to enjoy her life, just being my mom.
So when she got sick again I didn’t panic.
I didn’t think this is the last time.
I thought we’ve been here before.
But this time she didn’t make it.
And it wasn’t just shocking, it was disorienting because when you’ve been a caregiver for most of your life danger doesn’t look like danger anymore.
It looks like routine.
It looks like “I’ll check on her in a few.”
It looks like trust in a future you didn’t realize was already gone.
And the guilt of that lingers in places even grief can’t touch.
I still ask myself why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t I know?
Losing my dad broke something in me.
But losing my mom after years of caring for her, growing up beside her, and planning to grow old with her shattered what was left.
We used to joke I’d be 80 and she’d be 102 like Sophia and Dorothy from The Golden Girls.
She was supposed to be the constant.
The one who stayed.
The one who saw me through.
What people don’t understand is that my grief didn’t come in one clean wave.
It came in layers.
It came from two directions. Losing a father who steadied me and a mother whose illnesses made me her witness, her nurse, and her tether.
People think having an older dad means you had less to lose.
They think having a sick mom means you had time to say goodbye.
They don’t understand that some deaths are still sudden even when they come after long battles.
They don’t understand that caretaking blurs the line between normal and urgent.
That I wasn’t just grieving the moment she died, I was grieving every moment I thought we still had.
This is what compounded grief looks like.
Not just sadness but guilt.
Not just missing someone but mistrusting yourself.
Not just loss but undoing.
There are days I still feel like a daughter in limbo.
Grieving a father who had my heart.
Grieving a mother whose soul I tried to protect with everything I had.
And still trying to figure out who I am without either.
Thank you for reading. These words are part of my own return to writing amid loss. If they resonated with you, know that they were written alongside the work I do here at Remote Writing Jobs where I help other writers earn a living even as I relearn how to keep living myself. Becoming a paid subscriber for $15/month helps sustain both.
You're still their daughter even though they're not physically here anymore. They're present in your mannerisms, your routines, your face, your love. And you will continue to figure out who you are bit by bit as time moves, as life happens. I'm sending you all the love Melissa. And I hope you continue sharing parts of yourself amongst this wonderful resource you've created and community you've built.
Thank you Melissa, your writing brought me back to when my dad passed away. These words of yours resonate with me "When you’ve been a caregiver for most of your life danger doesn’t look like danger anymore" and grief came in layers truly captured the emotions I have felt since his passing. Thank you for your words brought memories that live on in me and I too had an older dad; his age made us value one another more. I learned to be intentional from early childhood and I am glad his age shaped him to be present and take the necessary steps to be the father that my siblings, mum and I needed.