A personal story of a Millennial Mom, grieving the passing of her dad while raising little ones.
I’ve grieved my dad twice: once slowly, while he was still alive, and once suddenly, when he died. The first was anticipatory grief—the second was the heartbreak of finality.
Anticipatory grief is what happens when you begin to mourn a loss before it’s fully happened. It’s common in the context of terminal illness or progressive diseases like Alzheimer’s, where the decline unfolds gradually, and you start to lose parts of the person long before death arrives. It’s not imagined or premature—it’s a real response to real changes. You’re grieving shifts in identity, connection, roles, and what the future no longer holds.
When my dad was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in his late 50s, I was deep in the chaos of raising two little boys. I was trying to keep up with nap schedules, work deadlines, and a growing sense that my father, a man who had always been steady, quiet, and thoughtful, was changing in ways none of us could stop (or understand).
He still looked like himself. He still played a few soft chords on the guitar now and then. But the gaps in memory grew wider, his sense of time and place became more fragile, and his ability to use words was limited. I found myself grieving in real time- grieving the father who could follow a conversation, who remembered birthdays, who gave directions without a map. And I was grieving what he wouldn’t be around for: the soccer games, the morning chats, the person I was still becoming.
It was a slow unraveling, and that kind of grief is hard to explain to people. There’s no ritual for it. No memorial. Just an ache that sits quietly beneath everything else—your job, your parenting, your day-to-day life. And it doesn’t replace the grief that comes later. It doesn’t make the actual loss easier or cleaner. It just adds to it.
His passing and processing the grief…
When he died, I wasn’t there. But I had this brief, naïve thought: maybe I’ve already said goodbye. Maybe I’ve already done most of the grieving. Grief doesn’t work that way. It’s not a trade-in system. The loss of who he used to be didn’t make the final loss any less devastating—it just meant I was grieving multiple versions of him at once. The man he had been. The version that faded. And now, the fact that was fully gone.
Grieving after a loved one’s death is sharp, public, and finite in a way. It has rituals and recognition. People send messages, show up, and offer help. The absence is complete and undeniable. The door is closed. There’s no more wondering if they’ll have a lucid day, no more hoping for one last “I love you” in a moment of clarity. That kind of grief is heavy, but it’s more socially acknowledged. The world pauses for it.
That’s what makes grief addictive. The grieving experience at each phase is unique, both because of your experience and because of what is going on around you. It’s not that you grieve one version and move on. You carry each layer with you. You mourn what was, what could have been, and what never got to be. You cope based on what you see, feel, and hear at each stage.
There’s no neat ending to this kind of grief. It shows up in quiet moments like when my sons do something he would’ve appreciated or when my daughter gives a doe-eyed, full-faced smile, and I realize he’ll never know her. Sometimes, I feel sadness. Other times, I feel gratitude that I have such fond memories.
I’ve learned that grief, both anticipatory and after-the-fact, is not about closure. It’s about continuing. It reshapes how you hold someone in your life. Even now, long after the formal goodbyes, I feel his patience in how I try to meet my kids where they are. And his sweet tooth with every dessert I order. His absence is real. But so is his influence.
I used to think of grief as an event. Now I understand it as a relationship—ongoing, layered, and evolving. It’s been two years since he passed. It doesn’t go away, but it shifts. Time doesn’t heal, but it adds new layers of experience. You don’t get to pick just one version of loss. You carry all of it, and you hopefully continue on.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rachael Piltch-Loeb, PhD, MSPH, was inspired by her family’s experience coping with caregiving and the lack of informational resources out there during that process. By day, Dr. Piltch-Loeb is a public health expert in research, measurement, and evaluation in public health emergencies. She holds a PhD in public health from NYU, an MSPH from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, and a BS from Georgetown University, and currently has academic appointments at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is the author of dozens of journal articles related to public health research and practice. Dr. Piltch-Loeb has consulted for private companies and professional organizations and been cited as an expert in international publications, including BBC, the New York Times, Reuters, National Geographic, the Atlantic, and Bloomberg News. She is based in New York City, where she lives with her children and her husband, Shahnawaz. She is a former caregiver and an aging millennial.
Rachael Piltch-Loeb, PhD, MSPH, is the author of The Millennial Caregiver: Caring for Loved Ones in the Busiest Years of Your Life (Sutherland House). She is a mother of three and lives with her husband and children in New York, NY.
Cover Photo by Jessica Lewis 🦋 thepaintedsquare
