My grief journey: How I got lost in nostalgia to cope with my loss

Here’s the thing about grief: it never goes away. As much as our culture would lead us to think, I’ve learned that it’s not a problem that needs solving with stages. Stages imply that you’ll eventually reach an endpoint, a resolution of some sort. Grief doesn’t allow for that. But you should allow yourself to feel all the emotions that come with grief as you learn to live with it. 

I lost both of my parents within three years  —  my father in Sept. 2021 and my mother in Aug. 2024. As an only child raised in a tight-knit family, I knew what it meant to feel a deep, undivided love (we were just the three of us). So this combined grief of losing them both close together has been devastating and cracked open a childhood fear I’ve carried for as long as I can remember.

Since then, I’ve had to navigate the chaos, numbness, and quiet revelations of grief. I’ve heard this journey described in all kinds of ways  —  and honestly, they’ve all had a point. I’ve read the books. I’ve tuned into the podcasts. I’ve gone through counseling. Each voice added something — and yet, nothing can fully capture the experience. 

Now more than ever, I find myself traveling back to relive what I thought were happier times - a period of my life when I had fewer concerns and my glasses were more rose-colored. With the tap of a button, I can stream the TV shows that defined my childhood, listen to an AI-generated playlist of songs I once put on mixtapes in high school, and rediscover the rare paperback novels I enjoyed during my bookworm days. 

I can now find a different kind of comfort in the media I consumed when I was younger. I can enjoy these pieces of pop culture through a different lens as they provide new insights into what I’ve been experiencing lately. I can appreciate them in a new way as they help me process the anxiety, sadness, anger, exhaustion, loneliness, gratitude, and every other complicated emotion that comes with grieving. 

These are my favorites:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 5, “The Body”

BTVS skillfully explored the initial moments following the (natural) death of Buffy’s mom. “Mommy,” Buffy whimpers before rushing to her, reverting to a child-like vulnerability I now know all too well. Series creator Joss Whedon captured the isolation and dullness in the minutiae of such a life-changing event, describing it on the DVD commentary as "the black-ashes-in-your-mouth numbness of death” that develops while trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. 

When I had to say my final goodbye to my mother in the hospital, my mind flashed through all the alternatives to this outcome while I was suddenly faced with a list of seemingly mundane tasks in the aftermath. Not unlike the titular heroine from one of my all-time favorite shows. 

“Mary Jane” by Alanis Morissette

This deep cut from 1995’s Jagged Little Pill, the definitive album of my adolescence, was once a seemingly wistful ballad about a friend in trouble. Now, thirty years later, it cuts even deeper, speaking to the all-consuming despair that can dominate one’s mental health. Mary Jane represents anyone who’s ever felt lost in a world that keeps moving while you remain paralyzed with your racing thoughts, stuck in an emotional state you think will never end.  

The Golden Girls, Season 6, “Ebbtide’s Revenge” 

Losing my mom was like losing a buffer that once protected me from the realities of certain family dynamics. Having no siblings, I can’t quite relate to Dorothy’s loss of her brother Phil, but this capsule episode from the iconic sitcom allowed me to recognize how the loss of my mom affected members of my extended family. 

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Sophia, having lost her only son, remains stoic throughout, finally breaking down in the final scene after she realizes her disdain for Phil’s wife, Angela, was really a cover for the shame, doubt, and guilt she held onto for a child she never understood.

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Anticipatory grief is beautifully conveyed in Chris Kelly’s feature directorial debut that stars Jesse Plemons as David, a writer who returns home to care for his dying mother (an astonishing Molly Shannon). The movie eerily reflects my own relationship with this sense of dread, chronicling a year in David’s life as he learns more about his family and his issues with loneliness while coming to terms with the inevitable. The dramedy also features a running gag involving Train’s “Drops of Jupiter” as an inescapable tune popping up during inopportune times, including a scene where David breaks down in a supermarket while shopping for laxatives. Not too long ago, I had a similar experience with Sabrina Carpenter’s “Feather” inside a Dollar Tree in Florida while shopping for antacids.

Sex and the City, Season 4, “My Motherboard, My Self”

Miranda mourns the loss of her mom in Philadelphia, a hundred miles away from her friends, in this episode that taps into the isolating loneliness of grief (this was me in Florida, thousands of miles away from my friends in L.A.). This episode also demonstrates the importance of found family during times of crisis when Carrie, Charlotte, and Samantha demonstrate their sisterly love by traveling to the City of Brotherly Love for their grieving friend. Though Miranda was surrounded by her family, there was nothing like the solace she found in her friends, particularly when Carrie joins a solo Miranda in the funeral procession and grabs her hand – a small moment that resonates with me more than it did twenty years ago.

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

Klune’s novel was published just two weeks after my father passed away. Still, it wasn’t until three years later and after my mother’s death that I read it and re-examined my relationship with death. Much like the main character in the book, a lawyer named Wallace who dies and finds himself tethered to a quaint tea shop that acts as a rest stop for souls before they enter the afterlife, I found myself confronting what it means to let go.

While Wallace reevaluates his life and finds an unexpected romance with the “ferryman” who runs the shop, reintroducing him to the concepts of kindness and empathy, I found myself doing the same (while also finding my own romance IRL). 

Klune’s mysterious and fascinating world may enchant anyone who’s dealing with loss, but for me, it has helped me accept grief as a silent passenger riding alongside me on this journey.

“Hold On” by Wilson Phillips

While this mid-tempo pop classic from 1990 was memorably used to comedic effect in the finale to 2011’s Bridesmaids, it also holds a special place in my heart. I have always associated it with my first international trip as a child. My parents and I traveled to Japan to visit my father’s homeland, and the long flight from New York felt like an eternity to a kid like me. Keeping me occupied, besides my tattered copy of John Bellairs’s The Curse of the Blue Figurine, was the airline’s rotation of songs, which included “Hold On.” I knew the lyrics by heart by the time we landed in Tokyo, but now those lyrics work as a mantra, encouraging me to embrace my grief journey, to take care of myself, and to stay present.

Nostalgia is always an alluring trip to take, and sometimes it’s difficult to leave its comforts behind and return to present-day reality. But after revisiting these particular pieces, I can feel a renewed sense of purpose, of gratitude, just like Wallace feels at the end of Under the Whispering Door. I know I will keep honoring and recognizing my grief as the state of unexpressed love that it is — because I still have so much more of it to give.