How do you navigate life after losing a loved one?

It has been a little over a year since I lost my mother, and honestly, I still don’t know how to explain what that kind of loss does to a person. Some days I feel okay, almost normal, and then out of nowhere the grief hits me like it just happened yesterday. Life keeps moving forward, but part of me feels frozen in that moment when everything changed.

Since she passed, everything feels heavier. Simple things take more effort. Motivation comes and goes. I try to stay strong, especially for the people around me, but there are nights when the quiet feels too loud and the memories come flooding back. I miss her voice, her advice, and the comfort of knowing she was always there. It’s strange how someone can be gone, yet still be everywhere in your thoughts.

I’ve learned that grief isn’t something you “get over.” You just learn to carry it differently. Some days I carry it well, other days it feels unbearable. I try to honor her by living, by pushing forward even when I don’t feel like it. I remind myself that she would want me to keep going, to find moments of joy again, even if they’re small.

So I’m reaching out to others who understand this kind of pain. How do you navigate life after losing someone you loved deeply? What helps you on the hard days? I don’t have all the answers, but I know it helps not to feel alone in this.

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TheRealBarbossa · 36-40, T

Not sure I'm qualified to answer this, but I know it's not easy.

My story:
My dad left when I was 1 and mom was 3 months pregnant with my sister. (We found out decades later she chased him off because he liked to drink more than she did. He became an alcoholic to cope with the fact he wasn't allowed to see us anymore)

Mom trash talked him every chance she got (still does) and still decided to force a meetup with him when we were 11 and 13.
It didn't go well at all. (Long story and he lived 5h away)

We tried to keep in touch with him without mom knowing, but failed.

In 2018 my sister found out he had terminal cancer, and we made a plan to visit him without mom finding out, because we wanted/needed closure.

Early August that year we made the trip to see him. He was in palliative care already, 3 months after his diagnosis. He did everything he could to keep us there without us noticing. Ofcourse, we noticed, and appreciated it. So we stayed as long as we could that day and came back the next morning.
He still did everything he could to postpone saying goodbye to us. But my sister has 3 kids who needed her, so we had to leave relatively early.

Not once did he say anything bad about our mom. Instead he kept quiet or changed the topic.

We drove home feeling like we missed out on having a dad for the first time ever.

Exactly one week later he passed, and we were both mourning him and the relationship we were robbed of. But we couldn't let anyone around us know we were sad about him passing. Instead we had to play along with the "good riddance" jokes.

Sorry. Went on a bit of a rant there.