I’m going to give you some advice that I wish someone offered me when I lost my mother. Take it or leave it, but at the end of the day, know that you are not alone.
Listen, a lot of people are going to walk up to you, pat your back, offer their condolences, and assure you, “it gets better,” but for a while, it might not. And that’s perfectly okay. You’re allowed to be angry and confused and sad. You’re allowed to grieve. In fact, you should. You lost a parent and that fact won’t be easy to grasp for a while.
You’re going to miss them more than you thought you were capable of. You’re going to look around for them on your birthdays, on Christmas, at graduation. You’re going to be jealous of your friend’s parents. You’ll start to forget what they looked like, what they sounded like, how they danced and laughed and hugged.
The grieving process won’t end when you reach acceptance. You will always have a piece of you that is angry or confused or sad, but that piece doesn’t have to define you. Grief is not a one-and-done process, it’s a journey that you might have to undergo a few times.
But wait, here comes the good part. You’re going to learn to overcome. Life might pass you by for a while, but sooner or later, you’ll start to run alongside it. It won’t happen overnight, but after a while, you’ll wake up and realize that you’re free and at peace and you won’t accept pity anymore.
So please, kid, hold on. Hold on for dear life. Kick and scratch and claw your way out of the sadness. You’re going to turn out just fine. You’re going to triumph. You’re going to make them proud.