Quote

Obviously, at this age, I've lost people in my life. But with a parent, it's just different. I was very attached to my father and had this naive little-girl notion that he'd always be around. So I'm finding acceptance of my father's death is the hardest thing to accept.

Dad passed away in 2000, but he visits me all the time. He comes to me in different ways. So I have that connection with him, and that comforts me, to know that in time I can come back and still have that with my kids. It's not unfamiliar to me, that connection with the afterlife. I know it's real; I experience it all the time.

I lost my dad when I was younger, and I know what it's like to lose a beloved parent.

After losing Dad, there was the idea that none of us have forever. It really affects you. It makes you want to live each day as if it's your last.

Losing both parents at a young age gave me a sense that you can't really control life - so you'd better live it while it's here. I stopped believing in a storybook existence a long time ago. All you can do is push in a direction and see what comes of it.

And in that time, I lost my dad and had kids of my own. It was like, OK, I get it now. I know what fatherhood is all about. And you look at your parents differently.

My father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening.

The grief of losing my father has come in waves over the years, as it does with most people. His love and devotion as a father provided my closest, most intimate relationship. Dad, and our time together, is in my bones. While reflecting on him, the memories themselves seem to boil down into certain 'essences of Dad.'

I was very close to my mother, and her death, which left a gaping hole in my life, has been very difficult for me and my father in a lot of ways.