The Day My Dad Died And The World Kept Turning

The Feral Truth: The world keeps going after loss. Not because your grief doesn't matter. Because your life still does.

The strangest thing about grief isn't the sadness.

It's the normality.

The absolute audacity of normal life continuing.

The day my dad died, the world should have stopped.

At least that's what it felt like it should do.

There should've been an announcement.

A pause.

A universal timeout.

Maybe a brief suspension of all unnecessary nonsense.

Instead?

Traffic still existed.

People still went to work.

Emails still arrived.

Somebody, somewhere, was probably arguing about a coupon.

The world just kept moving.

And honestly?

I found that offensive.

Because how could everything still be normal when nothing felt normal anymore?

My dad was gone.

The man who helped with school projects.

The man who fixed things.

The man who always seemed to know what to do.

The man who somehow felt permanent.

And yet somehow my inbox still wanted my attention.

I remember looking at my phone and feeling genuinely annoyed that notifications continued to appear.

Read the room, internet.

This feels like a terrible time for a promotional email.

Grief does weird things to your brain.

One minute you're crying.

The next minute you're laughing at a memory.

Then you're angry because somebody asked what you want for dinner.

As if dinner remains a relevant topic.

Then you feel guilty because life keeps happening around you.

But eventually I realized something.

The world continuing isn't a betrayal.

It's a gift.

Because one day you're grateful the dogs still need feeding.

The coffee still needs making.

The laundry still needs folding.

The ordinary things become anchors.

Proof that life still exists around the loss.

You never stop missing people you love.

At least I don't think you do.

But eventually the memories stop feeling like knives.

They start feeling like conversations.

Not gone.

Just carried differently.

My dad is still with me.

In the stories.

The habits.

The random things I say that sound suspiciously like him.

The things he taught me without realizing he was teaching me.

Turns out love leaves fingerprints everywhere.

Yours in chaos,

~Kari, The Feral Caregiver