I’m currently 24. My dad died in august 2016. Mom died april 2017. There’s a pain at all times. Sometimes not as intense, sometimes blinding. Talking about it helped a lot. Finding people who didn’t make me feel like a burden. Telling people that even if I didn’t bring it up, it was always okay if they did - asking me questions about them, asking me for stories about them and our time together, asking me even about their sicknesses and their last weeks, it all helped because it made me talk.

Sometimes I ball up and cry for an entire week. Other times they’re just a fond memory that I can look back at with a smile. So for now it’s been day by day. They loved me and did everything they could to show that, and all the loneliness and sadness in the world can’t change that. And I’ll always take comfort in that.