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 29, 2025
I can't save her, just as I could not save my father.
Today is the anniversary of my father's death. I lost him 19 years ago. I had horrific anxiety all day. I feel broken.
I looked at pictures of me with my parents when I was a child. He was here. He was real. That life together was once mine. I've been asking myself what I will live for when she is gone. I don't have a clear answer. What is life without love? Why am I here? For now, one possible reason to continue living is so that I can carry on the memory of my parents.
The days pass in a stupor. There are fleeting moments of relief—a song, a poem, a message that makes me feel remembered or as though someone is holding my hand.
I love watching the baby rabbits chew grass in the front yard.
Solace: the trees at dusk, luminous and drenched in gold.
The enormity of this experience dazes me. I felt sick today, light-headed and dizzy. My body can't hold the pain. There is no one to hold me, to take my hand in theirs, to give me tenderness.
When someone you love suffers, you suffer. It tears apart the mind, body, heart, and soul.
