Over a year has gone by since I last sat down to write an article for Her Campus. I decided to step away from writing as I assumed the role of President of our chapter. But a huge shift has taken place in my life that I felt called to write once again: the loss of my grandpa.
In the past few months, when I’ve slowly been losing my Papa to heart failure, and in the time that he has been gone, I’ve noticed that grief and the loss of a loved one are hardly ever spoken about. Statistics from the US National Institute of Health show that roughly 1 in 12 children will lose a parent or sibling by age 18. And their further research shows that roughly 40% of young adults have experienced the death of an immediate family member. This would mean that over 3,000 of our fellow St Andreans have experienced the loss of a sibling, a parent, a cousin, or a grandparent. And this is not even taking into account the loss of friends, teachers, or comrades. One of the few things that every human on earth has in common is the fact that we will all experience loss at some point in our lives. And as the statistics provided above show, lots of these losses may very likely be experienced by the time we leave university, or if you’re like me, during university.
My Papa, Roger, was an amazing man. My Papa was the eldest of fifteen children. Yep, you read that right: fifteen. He was born in Hague, North Dakota, to a farming family. He only learned English when he went to middle school, as Hague was, and remains, a German-speaking town. He joined the military and married my grandmother. They had two children, my mom and her brother, and my mom had me. He had fifteen siblings, then he had two children, but he only had one grandchild: me. He was the best Papa to me, and in a life full of crazy adventures, he was my constant. Looking at photos of him and me from his life, my mom said something that stuck with me: “He was always on your level.” Not just literally, as he crouched to my 2-foot-tall self as a child, but figuratively. He was on my level at every step of my life. He always met me where I was.
Losing Papa has been my first immediate family loss. I am now one of the many who back up the statistics shown above and who will lose an immediate family member in their young adulthood. Being in your twenties is hard enough. Change becomes a constant. Many of us are far away from home (4,000 miles to be exact for me), balancing extracurriculars, a job, university studies, friendships, and relationships. But what’s rarely spoken about is the millions of twenty-something-year-olds like me who have no choice but to add grief and loss to that mix. While this article is in part a tribute to my Papa, what he means to me, and what losing him has meant for me, I also want to touch on what this grief has looked like for me and the lessons I learned the hard way during this heartbreaking period of life. Because I am not the first one who has experienced such a devastating loss at such a young age, and I will not be the last.
I lost Papa slowly. He had a quadruple bypass surgery fourteen years ago and has since been living on borrowed time. For most of these fourteen years, he was doing wonderfully. Many won’t, but if you know a German-North Dakotan farmer, you know that nothing could stop them from working, living, and never slowing down. But in year thirteen after his surgery, Papa got bronchitis and Covid-19, which knocked him off his feet. He went for a check-up, and in August of 2025, his heart was functioning at 15% capacity. He pushed as hard as he could. Nobody could convince him to leave his two-story home with stairs he could hardly walk up. He even tried to fix his vehicle himself and, while accidentally releasing the handbrake, ran over his arm. He was sturdy, but with each illness he caught, each time he fell, or ran over his arm with his car, he got weaker. Since August of 2025, Papa had gone to the emergency room over 25 times. A few weeks ago, he could no longer leave the hospital. He then passed away peacefully with his nine living siblings around his bed.
Nobody talks about the quiet pain that young adults like myself experience while losing a loved one. It does not matter whether they pass slowly or suddenly. The pain is numbing, it’s suffocating. The famous St Andrews bubble only makes this pain worse. Everyone knows that in St Andrews, people are always “on”. They’re dressed up, buttoned up, a smile plastered on their face, whether it represents them internally or not. I once went to a café in sweatpants, and the barista asked if I was unwell, if I had come down with a cold. It’s not her fault for thinking this way – the vast majority of St Andreans dress up for class like it’s a fashion show, parading their fanciest bags around town and wearing a perfectly curated outfit. The pressure to look your best and present your best is constant in our quaint seaside Fife village.
It’s not all bad to wear cute clothes, dress up for class, and do your makeup to the best of your ability on a Tuesday at 7:00 am. But while you are grieving someone, the littlest things become hard. A casual coffee date with friends? I can’t imagine how I can plaster on a smiling face! Getting a critique from a professor? I immediately feel like I’m going to cry. Going to a ball or an event? I’ve left many crying in overwhelm. Dealing with grief and loss at university, or in your twenties, means that you are constantly living in a paradox: trying to enjoy your life, participate in things you’d typically enjoy, and trying to put your best foot forward academically or in work – while simultaneously feeling a dark cloud of sadness and emptiness that you can’t shake while grieving your loved one. Throughout the past eight months that I’ve been living in this paradox, I have made a fair few mistakes. There’s no manual on how to grieve, how to go about your normal everyday life while losing one of the people you love the most. But I’d like to share some things I have tried and am reminding myself to continue doing in this new period of loss.
The first, and perhaps most important piece of advice, is to take care of yourself. Put yourself and your mental health before everything. I had to sacrifice a lot of things while I was losing Papa. I could not continue playing competitive tennis. This takes some self-exploration and self-understanding. Finding things that stress you and removing them from your life is important. I knew myself well enough to know that had I continued putting more on my plate, I would have been suffocating. Taking care of yourself is not just about giving up commitments, but also adding in things that make you feel good. It could be yoga, meditation, coloring (my personal favorite), or even binging Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Getting rid of things that don’t serve you, and adding things that recharge your batteries, will help you feel lighter in such a dark time.
Second, be clear with people. We’re at university, which is hard enough. On top of that, I (regrettably) decided to write a dissertation. While I gave up some commitments, nothing could make me stop Her Campus. And academics will never stop, as much as I wish they could. So being clear about my situation and communicating how I am doing with my professors and my Her Campus board has become extremely important. If you do not let people know that you don’t have the same capacity as normal due to your loss, they will expect you to be capable of everything you could handle without grief. I let my professors know about my circumstances so I didn’t get cold-called in class. I told my Her Campus board and team that they would need to take over my tasks. Often, as women, we see boundaries as weaknesses. I now see them as strengths.
Finally, lean on the support you have. My family, boyfriend, friends, and even professors and comrades have helped me process the grief and helped me through my many lows. Your support system can be your friends and family, but it can also come from unexpected places – don’t push those connections away. Grief and loss are among the very few things all humans share. My mom’s assistant at her law firm has become one of my closest friends in this process because he, too, dealt with a slow loss. Allow people to pick you up when you are down, and allow new connections to blossom over the shared experience of loss.
Loss and grief are not preventable. They are, sadly, something that almost all humans will experience in their lifetime. But it is not all sad: grief and loss connect us, and are a huge part of the human experience. Losing and grieving my Papa has taught me many things. I undoubtedly experience bouts of sadness and will always miss my Papa. That void will never be filled. But this loss has also taught me how important my support system is, how to set boundaries for myself and with others, and to take care of myself when I am overwhelmed. And it’s taught me not to be afraid of the topic of grief and loss. It is something that makes us all connected and should function as a way to understand each other better, not to isolate us further from each other.