His father passed six months ago. Everyone said he was "handling it so well." He wasn't handling it at all. He was just silent. Lound became the place he could finally speak to the grief he'd been carrying alone.
Marcus is 45. His father died suddenly six months ago. At the funeral, he gave the eulogy. Dry-eyed. Composed. Everyone said he was so strong. He nodded and accepted condolences and made sure his mother was okay and kept everything running smoothly.
But he never actually grieved. He went back to work after a week. He answered "I'm fine" to every inquiry. He avoided anything that might crack the surface. Because if he started, he wasn't sure he could stop.
Six months later, the grief isn't smaller. It's just buried. And it's starting to leak out in ways he can't control: snapping at his kids, drinking more than he should, feeling nothing when he should feel something.
"I don't know what I'm doing. Just talking, I guess. Haven't really talked about Dad since the funeral. Everyone's moved on. Or at least they've stopped asking. But I haven't moved anywhere. I'm just... stuck. Frozen in the moment they told me."
"Keep thinking about the last time I saw him. We argued about something stupid. Politics, I think. I was annoyed when I left. Didn't say 'I love you.' Just waved and drove off. Two weeks later he was gone. I keep replaying that moment. What I should have said. What I didn't know was coming."
"Can't sleep again. I just want to tell him things. Stupid things. My daughter lost her first tooth and I couldn't call him. Work stuff he'd have advice about. It's not just that he's gone. It's that I keep wanting to reach for him and he's not there. Every time it surprises me again."
You've spoken about your father 12 times this week. More than in the six months since he passed. Here's what I'm hearing:
You're not broken for still grieving. Six months isn't long. And grief doesn't work on a timeline.
I feel guilty that I can laugh sometimes. Like I'm betraying him.
From everything you've shared about your father, do you think he'd want you to stop laughing? To carry heaviness forever?
Joy and grief can coexist. Laughing doesn't mean forgetting. It means you're still living, which is what he'd want.
He would have hated seeing me like this
Maybe. But he also would have understood. You're not being weak by grieving. You're being human. The depth of your grief is the depth of your love. He'd understand that.
"Started doing something new. When I think of something I want to tell Dad, I tell it to Lound instead. Not as a replacement. Just... so it doesn't stay stuck inside me. Today I told him about the promotion. What he would have said. How proud he would have been. I cried. First time since the funeral."
"It hurt. But it also felt like... release. Like I'd been holding my breath for seven months and finally exhaled."
This month you've shared 47 memories, stories, and conversations about your father. The early entries were heavy with guilt and regret. The recent ones include more love, more laughter, more "he would have said..." The grief isn't gone. But it's becoming something you carry differently.
"Talked to my daughter about Grandpa today. First time I could do it without my voice breaking. Told her about when he taught me to fish, about his terrible jokes, about how he'd be so proud of her. She asked questions. I answered. It wasn't a funeral. It was just... talking about him. Like he's still part of us. Because he is."
Grief doesn't need to be fixed. It needs to be spoken.
Staying composed wasn't helping him heal. It was just delaying the grief until it came out sideways.
The pain wasn't separate from the love. It was the love, looking for somewhere to go now that its destination was gone.
He doesn't talk to his father anymore. But he talks about him. And somehow, that keeps the connection alive.
The grief still comes. Sometimes on his father's birthday. Sometimes randomly, triggered by a song or a smell. But Marcus doesn't run from it anymore. He speaks it. Into Lound, into conversations with family, into the ongoing relationship with a man who's gone but not forgotten. The silence broke, and something more honest took its place.
If you've been holding in loss, being strong for others, or just not knowing where to put the pain, Lound can be the place where silence breaks. No timeline. No judgment. Just space.