With Father’s Day and her dad’s 65th birthday falling in the same week, Victoria Neill shares how losing him has shaped her, and the questions that come out of her grief.
This week, it would have been my dad’s 65th birthday. It is Father’s Day too.
For anyone who has lost a parent, you will know that dates like this are rarely just dates. Weeks like this do not let me carry grief quietly. For the past two weeks, I have felt it building before I fully understood what it was. A heaviness I could not quite name. Feeling more emotional than usual, more sensitive, more easily overwhelmed. Like my body had remembered the dates before my mind had properly caught up.
That’s the thing about anniversaries, birthdays and Father’s Day: grief does not always arrive neatly on the day itself. Sometimes it starts circling weeks before. It shows up in your mood, your energy, your patience, your ability to care about ordinary things. His birthday is hard because it asks me to imagine the age he never got to reach.
What would 65 have looked like on him? Would he have changed? Would he still have said the same things, made the same jokes, cooked the same food, watched the same films?
Fathers Day is Everywhere
Father’s Day is hard in a different way. It is everywhere. In shop windows, emails, adverts, cards, posts, conversations. It is a public reminder of something I carry privately. A day built around celebrating dads, when the only thing I can do is miss mine. There is something especially cruel about seeing the word “Dad” everywhere and feeling, for a second, like the world has forgotten that some of us still have all that love, but no place to put it. If you are grieving a parent too, especially around Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, birthdays, anniversaries, or any date that seems ordinary to everyone else, I think you will understand this feeling. The way your body seems to know before you do. The way cards, adverts, posts, and casual conversations can suddenly feel unbearable.
Grief has become a second shadow. At times like this, it follows me into everything. It makes the world feel darker, heavier, as though someone has turned the saturation down. Most of the time, I can keep going. I can work, see my friends and family, do my hobbies, and put energy into the things and people I care about. I can be 28. But this week, I feel 19 again — the age I was when I lost him.
Two dates, so close together, have brought everything I usually carry quietly right to the surface. Back to the girl who did not know what to do with all the love, shock, fear and sadness. I cannot give him a card. I cannot call him. I cannot hear his voice. I cannot hear him tell me, in whatever way he would have said it, “Chin up, Toots. You can do this.”
You Don’t Just Lose Someone Once
It’s been eight years. Eight years of life happening without him. Eight years of becoming someone he has not been here to see. He would not recognise the life I lead now in all its details — the people around me, the places I go, the things I am working towards, the experiences I have had, the versions of myself I have grown through.
You do not just lose someone once.
You lose them again and again, in every version of your life they are not here for.
Before and After
At 19, I lost my dad in a way that felt too fast, too sudden and too traumatic to fully process. One moment, life existed in one shape. Then everything was split into before and after. I was forced into a life without the comfort blanket of parental love. Without the person who made the world feel safer just by being in it. Without the backing that lets you take risks, make mistakes, fall apart, change direction, try again Losing my dad was not just emotional. It was practical. It was financial. It was psychological. It changed what felt possible. It changed how brave I felt allowed to be. It made every decision carry more weight, because somewhere underneath it all was the fear: if this goes wrong, who catches me?
Without him, I learned to be careful. I learned to calculate. I learned to protect myself from needing too much, wanting too much, risking too much. And maybe that is why, even now, at 28, I can feel so behind. Because part of me has not just been grieving him.
I miss having the dad that would guide me through a job offer, a new hobby, a relationship, a big decision. The dad who would tell me what questions to ask, what to look out for, whether I was being sensible or whether I needed to be braver. The dad who would want to know whether I felt safe, whether I was happy. The dad who would know how to reassure me in a way no one else quite can.
Sometimes it’s Just the Reassurance I Miss
The ordinary, familiar comfort of being known by him. The feeling that if I was unsure, overwhelmed, excited, heartbroken, confused or scared, there was someone I could go to who would somehow make the world feel a little less heavy.
I wonder all the time:
· Whether he would be proud of me.
· What he would think of the woman I am becoming.
· Whether he would recognise me.
· Whether he would see the little girl he knew inside the adult I am trying to be.
· Whether he would understand the choices I have made.
· Whether he would be proud of how hard I have tried, even when I have felt lost.
Feeling Lost
Because the truth is, I do feel lost sometimes. I feel behind. I feel unsure of my direction. I feel like everyone else got a manual for adulthood that I missed somewhere in the chaos of losing him. And when the grief is loud, everything can start to feel without purpose. Sometimes it makes me question everything.
The things I usually care about suddenly feel distant. The future feels less exciting and more frightening. I can know, logically, that I have things to look forward to, people who love me, a life I am building — and still feel like something essential is missing from the centre of it. I am still figuring out what to do with all this feeling — the guilt, the sadness, the pride, the ambition, the righteousness, the anger, the love. It has nowhere obvious to go now.
Grief is Questions
At 19, grief was shock. It was disbelief. It was survival.
At 28, grief is questions.
· Would he be proud of me?
· Would he like who I am becoming?
· What would he say about my dreams?
· What advice would he give me?
· Would he tell me to be braver?
· Would he tell me to slow down?
I wish he could see me in London.
I wish he could know the people I love.
I wish he could watch me become more myself.
I wish he could see me trying.
You might be years on from the loss and still feel pulled back to the age you were when it happened. You might be building a life, making plans, falling in love, changing jobs, moving cities, becoming someone new — and still wish the person you lost was here to witness it. And maybe that is the thing I want other young grievers to know, and the thing I am trying to remind myself too: if grief makes you feel like you have gone backwards. Sometimes your body and heart are simply returning to the age where they were first broken, asking to be looked after again.
You can be growing and still grieving.
You can be moving forward and still feel pulled back.
You can be building a life and still wish, desperately, that the person you lost was here to witness it.
You can be 28 and still feel 19.
Full of Love
This is me and my grief. Not healed, not tidy, not always easy to explain. But full of love. Full of longing. Full of a daughter still trying to live a life.
My dad would have turned 65. It is Father’s Day too. I still have things I want to tell him. I still have questions I want to ask. I still want his advice, his reassurance, his humour, his protection, his pride.
And this week, and any time grief pulls me back into those moments where everything feels uncertain — the big questions, the fear, the feeling that I do not know what I am doing — I will try to imagine what he would say.
I think he would tell me what I have needed to hear all along.
“Chin up, Toots. You can do this.”
Victoria Neill
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