Today is New Year’s Day, 2026.

And I am stepping into this year with one person less.

One person less to show off my success to.

One person less to share my happiness with.

One person less to confide my worries in.

One person less to lean on when life feels heavy.

I lost my father on December 17, 2025.

I lost my pillar of strength.

This year already feels different. Not because of resolutions or new beginnings, but because the world itself feels altered. Everything around me is the same, yet nothing truly is. I know that when similar situations pass by in the future, I will see them differently, because one constant presence is now missing from my life.

I don’t think I will ever truly “get over” this loss. Some losses don’t ask to be healed; they ask to be carried.

My decisions will change now. Not because I want them to, but because the person who shaped my courage, my confidence, and my sense of safety is no longer here. I can no longer dwell in my memories the way I used to. Every memory holds him somewhere within it, and that hurts. It hurts too much.

I even find myself afraid to create new memories. Because he won’t be part of them. Because I can’t tell him about them.

The grief of losing a parent is unlike anything else. It is terrible. It is heavy. And strangely, it grows tougher with each passing day. People say, “The show must go on.” And I know that’s true. Life does move forward. But how does one move forward when the heart feels permanently altered?

Does this too shall pass?

I don’t know.

This is the first time in my life I have lost someone so important, someone inevitable. My father was not just a person in my life; he was a presence that defined safety, reassurance, and unconditional support.

The reality of death has struck me only now. Until this loss, death felt like an illusion, something distant, abstract, unreal. Today, I still hope this is just a terrible dream. I keep wishing I will wake up, run to him, and hug my father again.

There is a void in my heart that nothing can fill. It exists quietly, constantly. It will always be there.

This new year is different because it is the first year of my life without my father. A year I never imagined I would have to live.

2026 is not just another year on the calendar.

It marks a clear line in my life, before and after.

And I am learning, slowly and painfully, how to exist on the other side of that line.