Grief Fragments is a raw, ongoing diary about being by my mother’s side as she faces terminal cancer. It is an attempt to process—and survive—grief in real-time, to stay connected to life in the midst of death, to write the unspeakable, to bear the unbearable, and to record the final months, weeks, and days I have left with my mother. I am writing for my life.
May 22, 2025
My life is falling apart.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
—W.B. Yeats, from "The Second Coming"
Depression is seeping in. Consumed by despair and terror.
Struggling with the lack of support or response online. Hardly anyone has reached out; a couple of listeners even left insensitive comments. I'm shocked. I have no faith in people.
Life will be unbearable without her.
I try to savor the present, but I can't avoid how the future looms in front of us. I am mourning her before she is gone.
Everything is so important and so pointless at the same time.
