In the first few days after your parent died, you were running on adrenaline. Making arrangements. Calling family. Signing paperwork you barely read. People brought food. The phone kept ringing.
Now the phone has stopped ringing, and the grief is louder than anything you've ever felt.
If this is where you are right now, you're not failing at grief. You're in it. And what you're experiencing -- the fog, the waves, the strange guilt, the anger that comes out of nowhere -- is exactly what grief after losing a parent looks like.
This isn't a list of things you "should" do. It's an honest look at what grief actually feels like when you've lost a parent, why it hits the way it does, and what other families have found helpful in getting through it. If you need help with cremation arrangements or have questions about what comes next, call us at (438) 817-1770 any time, day or night.
What grief after losing a parent really feels like
The emotions nobody warns you about
People expect sadness. What they don't expect is everything else.
Grief after losing a parent isn't one feeling. It's anger at a doctor, guilt about a conversation you never had, relief that the suffering is over -- and then guilt about feeling relieved. It's numbness that makes you wonder if something is wrong with you, followed by a wave of sadness so sudden it takes your breath away in a grocery store.
If you felt relief when your parent died, especially after a long illness, that doesn't mean you didn't love them. It means you watched someone you love suffer, and your body and mind are responding to the end of that suffering. Relief and grief can exist in the same breath. Many families describe this exact experience.
Grief is physical, not just emotional
You might be surprised by what your body is doing right now. Exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix. Chest tightness. A foggy feeling that makes it hard to remember why you walked into a room. Loss of appetite, or eating without tasting anything. Insomnia, even though you're more tired than you've ever been.
This isn't your imagination. Grief activates your body's stress response. Your nervous system is working overtime to process what's happened, and that takes a physical toll. According to the Canadian Psychological Association, grief can affect your immune system, your sleep patterns, and your ability to concentrate -- sometimes for months.
If you're experiencing intense physical symptoms of grief, you're not falling apart. Your body is grieving alongside your mind.
It often gets harder before it gets easier
Here's something nobody tells you: the first few weeks can feel almost manageable. You're busy. There are logistics to handle. People are around. You're in survival mode.
Then, around week three or four, the world moves on. Your coworkers stop asking. The fridge empties. And the weight of what happened settles in fully for the first time.
This is normal. It doesn't mean you're getting worse at coping. It means the shock is wearing off and the grief is arriving -- which is painful, but necessary.
Why losing a parent hits differently than any other loss
You're grieving a person and a role
Losing a parent isn't like losing anyone else. You're not just grieving a person -- you're grieving the role they played in your life. The person who knew you before you knew yourself. The voice on the other end of the phone when something went wrong, or right, or you just needed someone to listen.
There's a particular kind of unmooring that comes with a parent's death. You shift from being "someone's child" to standing on ground that feels less solid. Even if your relationship was complicated -- maybe especially then -- that shift is real and disorienting.
You grieve the future, not just the past
One of the cruelest parts of losing a parent is realizing, over and over, what they'll miss. The wedding they won't attend. The grandchild they'll never hold. The holiday dinner where their chair stays empty.
You'll reach for the phone to call them. You'll hear news and think, "I need to tell Mom." And then you'll remember. This doesn't stop happening. It just becomes less of a shock and more of an ache.
Society can minimize parental loss
Coping with the loss of a parent is one of the most common forms of bereavement -- and partly because of that, people can unintentionally minimize it. "They lived a good life." "At least they're not suffering anymore." "You'll get through it."
These words are usually meant kindly. But they can make you feel like your grief has an expiration date, or like it shouldn't hurt as much as it does. Your parent dying is a profound loss, regardless of their age or the circumstances. No one gets to decide when you should be "over it."
The stages of grief after losing a parent -- and why they don't work the way you think
What the "5 stages" actually mean (and don't mean)
You've probably heard of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross developed this model in 1969 -- and it was based on her work with dying patients, not with the people they left behind.
The stages were never meant to be a checklist. You don't move through them in order, finish "acceptance," and go back to your life. Grief doesn't work like that. If you're waiting to reach a stage that makes everything feel resolved, you'll be waiting for something that doesn't exist.
A more honest model: grief as waves
A better way to think about grief is as waves. Some days, you're standing on solid ground. Other days, a wave knocks you flat without warning -- triggered by a song on the radio, the smell of their laundry detergent on a stranger, a holiday card addressed to both your parents.
The waves don't stop, but most people find they become less frequent and less overwhelming over time. Everyone's grief journey is different, and that's exactly how it's supposed to be.
How long does grief last after losing a parent?
Most people notice a shift somewhere around 12 to 18 months, where the waves of grief come less often and they can talk about their parent without breaking down. But there's no expiration date. Grief changes shape over time -- the sharp, breathless pain of early loss softens into something that feels more like tenderness -- but it doesn't disappear. There's no deadline, and anyone who tells you there is hasn't been where you are.
According to research published in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, nearly 39% of bereaved Canadians wanted support in coping with their loss but didn't receive it. If your grief still feels heavy months or even years later, you're not alone -- and you're not doing it wrong.
7 things that actually help (from people who've been there)
There's no recipe for coping with grief after losing a parent. But here's what families we've worked with, and research on bereavement, suggest can make a real difference.
1. Let yourself grieve without a schedule
"I should be over this by now" might be the most harmful sentence in grief. There's no timeline you're supposed to follow, no point where you're supposed to be "fine." Some days will be harder than others, and that includes days that are three months out, or six, or two years.
Give yourself the same patience you'd give a friend going through this.
2. Take care of your body -- it's grieving too
You don't need to run a marathon or meal prep for the week. But the basics matter more now than usual. Try to sleep, even if it's restless. Eat something, even if it's toast. Step outside, even if it's just for five minutes.
Taking care of your body isn't about "being strong." It's about giving your system what it needs to keep functioning while it processes something enormous.
3. Say their name
One of the loneliest parts of grief is when people stop talking about the person who died. They tiptoe around the subject, change it when your parent comes up, or avoid mentioning them altogether -- usually because they're trying to protect you.
But most grieving people want to talk about their parent. Say their name. Share a story. Laugh about something they would have said. Keeping them in conversation doesn't set you back. It keeps them present.
4. Plan for the hard days
Their birthday. The anniversary of their death. Mother's Day or Father's Day. The holidays. These days will arrive whether you're ready or not.
Having even a simple plan -- visiting a place that mattered to them, cooking their favourite meal, spending the day with someone who gets it -- gives you a sense of control on days that feel uncontrollable. For more on navigating grief during holidays, we've written a guide that many families have found helpful.
5. Ask for practical help, not just emotional support
When people say "let me know if you need anything," they usually mean it. But in grief, it's almost impossible to know what you need, let alone ask for it.
Specific requests work better. "Can you bring dinner on Tuesday?" "Can you help me sort through the mail?" "Can you drive me to the lawyer's office?" People want to help -- give them something concrete.
It's also okay to delegate the logistics that follow a death. Estate paperwork, account closures, government notifications -- these don't have to be done alone. If you're still navigating the practical side, our guide to what happens after someone dies in Quebec walks through each step.
6. Find your people (grief isn't meant to be solo)
Grief can feel isolating, especially if you're the first in your friend group to lose a parent. The people around you care, but they may not know what to say. That's where grief support groups -- in person and online -- can make a difference.
Being around others who are going through the same thing doesn't fix anything, but it does something important: it reminds you that your experience is real, it's shared, and you're not as alone as you feel. See the resources section below for options in Montreal and Quebec.
If someone in your life is grieving and you're not sure how to show up, our guide on supporting a grieving friend can help.
7. Know when to seek professional help
Grief is not a mental illness. But grief can tip into something called prolonged grief disorder, which affects between 10% and 20% of grievers. Signs include an inability to function in daily life for extended periods, persistent feelings of meaninglessness, and difficulty accepting the death months after it happened.
Seeking professional help isn't a sign of weakness. It's a sign that you're taking your wellbeing seriously. If you're wondering how to deal with grief after losing a parent, a grief counselor or therapist can offer tools and perspective that friends and family, no matter how loving, can't.
Grief after cremation: the silence nobody prepares you for
When the arrangements end and the grief begins
In the days immediately after your parent's death, there's an odd momentum. Calls to make, decisions about cremation or burial, paperwork to file, family to coordinate. You're exhausted, but you're moving. There's a strange comfort in having something to do.
Then the cremation is done. The arrangements are finalized. The ashes are home. And the busy-ness that was holding you together vanishes.
Many families tell us this is when grief hits hardest -- not during the first phone call or the drive to the crematorium, but after. In the silence. When there's nothing left to organize and no reason to keep moving at that pace.
If this is where you are, know that this shift is one of the most common and least talked-about parts of loss.
Decisions that carry emotional weight
After cremation, you may face decisions that feel heavier than they should. What to do with the ashes. Whether to hold a memorial. When to go through their belongings.
Here's the thing nobody tells you: you don't have to decide right now. The ashes will be there when you're ready. The memorial can happen in a month, in a year, whenever it feels right. There's no deadline on honouring someone.
If you're wondering about options, our guide to what to do with ashes after cremation covers everything from scattering to keepsakes to memorial gardens -- and none of it needs to happen on anyone else's timeline.
Choosing simple cremation doesn't mean your grief is simple, or that your love was. It means you chose what felt right in a moment where everything was hard. Many families make this choice, and it's a good one.
You don't have to carry the logistics alone
At Cleo, we handle the cremation logistics -- transportation, paperwork, death certificates, and delivery of ashes -- so that during the worst week of your life, you have one less thing to carry. Our all-inclusive cremation service is $1,900 with no hidden fees, and we don't pressure you on timelines or upsell you on extras.
But what matters just as much is what happens after. We share grief resources with every family we serve, and we're here if you need to call -- even weeks or months later.
Moving forward doesn't mean moving on
There's a fear that sits underneath all of this: that moving forward means leaving your parent behind. That laughing again, or having a good day, or going back to your routine means you've forgotten them or that the grief wasn't real.
It doesn't. Moving forward means carrying them with you. It means their voice still shows up in your decisions, their laugh still echoes in family stories, and their absence still aches at the dinner table on a Tuesday.
You're not failing at this. You're living through something that millions of people have lived through before you, each in their own way, each on their own timeline. There's no wrong way to grieve a parent.
If you're navigating this right now and need help with cremation arrangements, or if you have questions about what comes next, call us at (438) 817-1770. We're here 24/7 - no pressure, no sales pitch. Just someone who understands that this week is one of the hardest of your life.