Today, someone asked me if papa’s death is easier—more bearable—than mama’s was. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. The question struck like a blade, sharp and unrelenting, cutting into wounds I thought I had long since buried.

Easier? Bearable?

There is no such thing when it comes to the shattering of worlds. The words caught in my throat, tangled in a thousand memories and the endless ache of missing them both.

Mama’s death was like the world had been set on fire and I was left standing in the ashes. Her laughter, her warmth, her unwavering presence—gone in an instant. It felt like I was drowning, fighting for air in a world that had grown cold and unrecognizable. She was life itself, her voice filling every corner of the house, her laughter wrapping us in warmth. When she died, It was as if the sun itself had been torn from the sky. Everything was chaos, an abyss that swallowed me whole.

Papa’s death feels different. It isn’t fire—it’s ice. It’s the suffocating stillness after the storm, where the quiet is so sharp it cuts straight to your soul. His passing is quieter, yes, but no less shattering. It’s the kind of silence that presses down on you, heavy and unrelenting. He was my anchor, my guide—the solid ground beneath me. Now, with him gone, there’s nothing but an aching void, as if the very foundation of my world has collapsed. The silence he’s left behind isn’t empty; it’s deafening in its weight.

How do I compare them? Losing mama was like losing the air in my lungs, like every breath was a struggle against a grief so raw it consumed me. Losing papa feels like losing the ground beneath my feet, like I’m falling endlessly with nothing to hold onto.

It’s not about which is easier—grief doesn’t measure itself in weight but in the depth of what was lost. It’s about how much of me died with them. Every breath I take feels borrowed from a life that no longer belongs to me, every step an echo in a world that feels emptier without them. It’s the way their absence has hollowed me out, leaving behind only fragments of the person I used to be. Grief is not just sorrow; it’s the unraveling of identity, the slow realization that the love, the safety, the purpose they gave me cannot simply be replaced. Because they weren’t just people—they were home, they were my beginning, my belonging. And now, without them, I am both lost and undone, carrying the weight of what can never be whole again.

Mama took the light—the warmth that made even the darkest nights feel safe, the love that wrapped itself around me like a shield. Papa took the foundation—the steady ground beneath my feet, the quiet strength that held me up even when I didn’t realize I was leaning. Together, they were my whole world, the axis on which my life turned. And now, that world is shattered beyond repair, leaving me adrift in a silence that no voice can fill, in a darkness that no dawn seems to break.

I miss them. God, I miss them so much it hurts to breathe. I keep wondering if they’re together now, if they’ve found the peace that eludes me here. And I wonder if they know how much I need them, even now. Even always.

No, it’s not easier. It never will be. The pain just shifts, finding new corners of my heart to break.

Love,

Ana 💋