Reading · Grieve Fully, Live Fully

As a doctor, I’ve sat with countless people as they faced loss. I thought I understood grief — its patterns, its physical toll, the hollow ache it leaves behind.

Then my dad died.

Suddenly I wasn’t the calm, steady presence on the other side of the desk. I was the daughter who couldn’t sleep, who kept replaying the last moments over and over again, who felt like the ground had disappeared beneath her.

In the months and years since, I’ve come to realise how many thoughts we keep to ourselves when we’re grieving. We censor them because they feel too raw, sound too irrational, or because we fear they’ll make others uncomfortable. But these thoughts tell the real story of grief — the one that lives beneath the surface.

Here are a few of my deepest, most vulnerable thoughts. As you read, I invite you to see if any of them feel familiar or bring to mind your own unspoken ones. When we share what we’ve kept inside, even the parts that feel too heavy or tender, we realise we’re not as alone as we think.

Leave a comment

Hi, I’m Ruhie! Writer, doctor, mum & grief advocate. Welcome to Grieve Fully, Live Fully — a space for honest, heartfelt reflections on grief, growth, and the messy, beautiful middle of being human. Whether you’re navigating loss, facing life’s uncertainties and challenges, or simply seeking a little hope, you’re not alone.

Did I do enough?

After someone you love dies, your mind becomes a loop of unfinished conversations. You replay the last time you saw them, the words you did or didn’t say, the decisions you made and the ones you wish you could take back.

For years, I’ve tried to remember the last time I saw my dad. It was a national public holiday and we’d been in and out of the house all day. Dad was watching the summer cricket series on TV while I was rushing to get out the door for dinner. I think I said goodbye — I hope I did — but I was distracted, assuming there’d be another moment, that I could just talk to him tomorrow. I’ve turned that day over in my mind endlessly, as if piecing it together and reliving every detail might somehow bring clarity, closure, even peace.

Grief has a way of making you believe you should have done more. Stayed longer. Asked better questions. Loved harder. It’s a painful illusion — the idea that if you’d only known what was coming, you could have changed the ending. But the truth is, hindsight is always clearer than the moment you’re living in. We do the best we can with the information, time, and emotional energy we have. None of us has a crystal ball.

What I’ve learnt I can do, though, is be more intentional with the people I love going forward. To pause. To really look at them. To make every interaction, however small, feel like it matters. Because it does.

And when the guilt rises, I remind myself that love isn’t measured by perfect choices. It’s measured by presence — showing up, imperfectly, with what you have to give.

What if I lose someone else I love?

No one tells you that grief can make you afraid.

Once you’ve seen how quickly life can change, a part of you subconsciously starts scanning for danger — a car driving too fast, a delayed text reply, a sudden silence on the other end of the phone. For me, it’s often about my children. I triple-check seatbelts, insist on helmets, ban running with sticks (partly the doctor in me talking), and sometimes lie awake imagining what I’d do if something happened to them. It’s not that I’m constantly anxious or living in fear. I’m just more aware than I used to be.

That kind of worry doesn’t mean you’re failing or that something’s wrong with you. It means you’ve seen how fragile life can be, and you love people enough to want to protect them. Over time, the fear settles. It might not vanish, but it becomes easier to live with. And if it ever feels like more than you can carry — if the thoughts are intrusive, or if you just need someone to listen — talking to a therapist, a GP, or a trusted friend can be really helpful.

It’s so unfair…

Grief can make the world feel unjust. You see people who behave cruelly still walking free, or others taking their loved ones for granted, and you can’t help thinking: Why do they get more time? Why was mine taken so soon? You don’t wish harm on anyone, but it’s hard not to feel the unfairness of it all.

It’s not pretty, but it’s honest. The randomness of loss is hard to accept. Sometimes I find myself angry at the world, angry that goodness isn’t rewarded, angry that my dad — one of the kindest people I knew — didn’t get more time.

I’ve learned to stop pushing those feelings away. They don’t make me ungrateful or bitter. They make me human. They remind me that love and unfairness can sit side by side, and that it’s okay to feel the sting of that truth. I try not to get lost in the injustice, because it’s not something I can control. Some days it’s harder than others, but I try hard to focus on what I can do which is to keep choosing love, even in a world that doesn’t always play fair.

Will people forget you?

One of my deepest fears is that my dad will fade from memory. That people will stop mentioning him. That the details of his life — his jokes, his warmth, the way he made everyone feel seen — will slowly slip away. Sometimes it breaks my heart to realise how quickly the world moves on. Once someone is gone, it can feel as though they’ve been erased, as if they never existed at all.

So I talk about him often. I tell stories, make references, bring him up in conversation, even when I sense people shifting in their seats. Part of me worries they’ll think I’m dwelling on the past. But what they don’t realise is that talking about him helps me feel closer to him. It keeps him present in life even in his absence.

Remembering is its own form of love. Speaking someone’s name isn’t holding on or being stuck — it’s honouring that they mattered, and still do.

Will I ever feel truly happy again?

Joy after loss is complicated. You laugh. You experience new things. You celebrate birthdays, holidays, milestones. But every moment of joy carries an undertone — the ache of knowing they’re not here to share it.

At first, I hated that. I wanted to experience joy without the shadow of grief. I thought that if I still felt sorrow, I must not be healing. Over time, I realised that’s not how it works. You can miss someone with your whole heart and still feel joy. Life after loss is learning to let the two coexist.

Yes, the happy moments now are touched by their absence, but they are also deepened by it. The joy that follows loss often runs richer, textured with gratitude and shaped by everything you’ve learned about love, fragility, and what it means to keep living.

Am I strong enough to get through this?

In the beginning, I didn’t think I was. I’d lived my whole life thinking I was strong — right up until someone I loved so deeply was ripped from my life. I remember lying awake, wondering how people survive this kind of pain. How they get up, go to work, care for others, keep functioning in a world that has shattered.

But somehow, you do. Not through extraordinary strength, but through small, ordinary acts of survival and courage. Getting out of bed. Making a meal. Going for a walk. Sending a message. Taking the next step, however inconsequential it feels. There’s no clear moment when it gets easier — you just look back one day and realise you’ve been carrying something heavy for a long time, and you’re still here.

Grief doesn’t go away, but it teaches endurance. It reveals a resilience you didn’t know you had — the part of you that keeps going, even when everything in you wants to stop. I’ve realised strength isn’t always something loud or dramatic. It’s steady, patient, deeply human, and it lives in all of us. One breath, one day, one small act at a time.

When you’re grieving, it can feel like you’re living in two worlds — the visible one that expects you to be fine, and the private one filled with thoughts you rarely share. But you don’t have to hide them. They’re part of what it means to keep loving someone who isn’t here anymore.

If any of these thoughts feel familiar, I hope you know you’re not alone. Grief connects us more deeply than we realise.

If you feel comfortable sharing, I’d love to hear from you:

What’s one thought or feeling you’ve carried in grief that you’ve never said out loud?

#47 What I'd tell you about grief (if I wasn't afraid to say it out loud)

Comments