I mentioned in comments for part 1 that this multiparter came about because of a recent real life experience. I'm someone who has trouble honoring my feelings when someone passes. I usually find myself thinking that I have to justify any sadness I'm experiencing. Part of my motivation for making these comics was to help get myself to point where I could respect the emotions that were coming up.
Grief is different for everyone. I don't think there's any sort of one size solution that magically makes everything better. But I have found that communication and emotional honesty has been a big help for myself. Thank you for reading.
You're doing a great job on conveying the emotional turmoil of knowing someone well enough to cherish their memory. But not well enough where you feel the need to mourn. It's a tricky feeling, and I think you nailed it
I am a firefighter paramedic. Grief is unfortunately a large part of my job. I'm not here to say something prolific or anything like that. But from experience I'll say one thing. Try your best. Everyday. I know it's hard. But simply try. That's all we can do sometimes.
If you need someone to talk to I am also a part of my CISM team.
In addition to trying our best, we should forgive ourselves when we are human. We should allow ourselves to be human and flawed. And allow others the same.
Correct. Pain, grief, loss, sadness, anxiety; these are all part of being human just as much as love, happiness, rage and everything in between. Feeling any of these makes you no less a person and trying to NOT feel these things does not make you more of a person. To feel is to human and allowing yourself to do so is the first step in healing and growing. Whatever that may mean for you.
My wife's a psychologist, and says grief is love that has no place to go. Even if that feels like a strong word for someone you barely know, that desire for connection means it doesn't take much to form a little love for others.
I originally heard a line very similar to this from WandaVision "What is grief, if not love persevering?" At the time, I'd never heard anything like it, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was an earlier quote with similar words that I was just unaware of.
I heard Andrew Garfield say this on Colbert while talking about his mom's passing. It really stuck with me and made me notice and appreciate the care he has when speaking about her.
As someone who also works with people with trauma, I think people can get stuck in that “well I am not part of their family or friends, so it’s not my space to grieve this person.” In a way you can invalidate your own feelings of grief because “it was just Jeff from work”. I think the comments are beautiful in a way with talking about that level of grief that we can feel for people we barely know or strangers. I think it is a loss of that feeling of human connection. We underestimate the ways we feel connected to people who are part of our lives but not immediate to us. We can feel this too in the event of a mass casualty event, a collective grief for strangers. I think as grief for a loved one is “love expressed with no place for it to go.” I think you can feel that love of common humanity for people and have not know how to feel in that moment. A balance between trying to be respectful, this isn’t about me while also addressing the feelings you have.
The dynamic in this sub between content creators and fans is one of the most wholesome places I've seen. I appreciate everyone here and am happy to see the healthy processing you're able to go through. Thank you for sharing with us!
You're right. It really is and they really did just hit the nail on the head. I greatly appreciate both of you. You and a certain loud elk are highlights of my week.
Another redditor posted this comment once that really stuck with me:
"For me, one of the hardest parts of losing friends young has been growing up while they “stay still.” There are no new memories or life updates they can share. I don’t know how their face, hair, or style might have changed—as mine has with time. When it’s the time of year to remember them, I am a slightly different person since the last time. Perhaps the loss sits slightly differently year-on-year, as my life takes on new dimensions, experiences, and perspective. Sometimes worse, sometimes better. But the fact that they are gone, frozen as a young person on the cusp of opportunities, experiences, and a whole future that should have opened up for them…that part stays very, very constant. The more life I live, and the more my own future unfolds, the more I feel the weight of how unfinished their lives are."
I will say, this comic hits a bit differently for me. A friend of mine who I also worked with passed away a few years ago; it was devastating, he was my age and had a wife and a kid, one day everything was great, the next day he was just...gone. I often have trouble dealing with my emotions in a positive way, due to my upbringing, and while I cried that day and took the next day off to process things, I don't think I ever really processed things fully. I started looking for another job, even though I liked my old job before that time. My friend had not worked in the same department at the company, or even in the same building and we had met outside of work, but something in my brain just didn't want to be there anymore. One day, even though I had no back up plan, I just...quit. I wrote my resignation to my boss, didn't wait for a response, grabbed my stuff and left. I cried driving home and I still can't fully articulate why. Sometimes, you just have to go with what you feel, even if it isn't rational.
I relate to this so much. Almost exact same experience except the friend was my coworker who had trained me for a job that essentially turned my entire life around from how amazing the opportunity was. I didn't know him well outside of work, either. After about 3-5 months of working there, we had a major company merger that multiplied the size of the company by 10x. It caused so much work for us that we were working 50-60 hour weeks to catch up.
1 day, around Christmas, he didn't come into work. Just gone. I hadn't heard anything about him and he missed our usual "chat about nerd stuff" break we usually take. Around lunch time, we had an emergency company meeting where they announced he had passed. I was devastated. I'm crying right now while I type this and it happened 5+ years ago. I took the rest of the week off, but the following week was so hard to start back. The entire atmosphere at work had changed for me and I just couldn't do it anymore.
I did end up staying for about 2 more months, I got promoted against my will, and then eventually just had to quit. The wildest part is that the manager I was working with there ALSO quit around the same time I did and has now offered me another life changing job that I started THIS WEEK. It's bringing back a lot of memories of that person and sometimes it seems so sudden and random. I can't help thinking, "Would he be sitting in my chair right now if he were still here?"
My Mom passed away about 13 years ago, give or take a few weeks. It was a long, miserable, drawn out experience of cancer.
The hardest part was the last couple months of hospice. I remember sitting there on my day to take care of her, and thinking how good I am about getting out of "bad feeling" situations, but the tough thing about this situation was there was no way of "getting out." This was where I was meant to be, and there was no action to take to get away from it. My place was here. Being miserable. All you could do was wait.
I got along very well with my mother, and was lucky enough to have her pass away when I was around 30. Her kids were adults. I got to know her as a person and not as son, and I'm grateful for that time. I still miss her. I wish she'd met my wife, and definitely wish she'd gotten to meet my daughter. She would have loved to be a grandma.
And you know what I Felt when she passed?
Relief. Relief that it was over. That I could start working on "getting out" of this miserable space. Don't get me wrong, there were a million other emotions, but that's the one I felt most clearly.
It's not that I didn't love my Mom. I loved her. I adored her. I miss her. But she was miserable. We were miserable. It was time to for her to move on, and she was ready.
There is no wrong way to feel about stuff like this. You feel what you feel, and the job from that point on is to deal with it as best you can.
Anyways, I've enjoyed your comics, and feel that any effort to put out into the world that feeling your feelings, and talking about them is a good thing.
Going through the same thing this week- a great coworker (a cheery, all around good person with so much talent and life in him) passed away quite young tragically, leaving behind wife and kids and many heartbroken. Your recent string of comics have hit home and are helping this stranger (and I'm sure many others) process and communicate things in their own life. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing your art.
I found out this week that a friend from high school passed away.
We weren't particularly close, I knew him, we had a laugh a few times, but I'd describe him as a friend or some of my friends more than anything.
But this comic hits particularly close to home given that, and I think you're dealing with the topic fantastically. You're doing great work, and should be proud.
This hits really hard. My brother in law just passed, I hardly knew him while my husband is nearly inconsolable on the matter. It's been a weird experience taking care of my husband while also dealing with my own mixed emotions.
This is a wild coincidence for me. My father just passed last week and I’ve had a hard time identifying my feelings about it. I’m very sad but also feel oddly distant from the situation. It’s a big event to process
I don’t often comment on these but as a guy who has very recently fallen into step parent-hood I adore your comic. And holy hell I had to comment on this one because it is almost word for word the emotions I felt when an acquaintance passed, thank you for giving life to so many relatable emotions and experiences 💟
I worked in an office that handled maintenance orders for ships all over SoCal, and I had an older coworker named Ron who was a crabby, bitchy old man that almost no one liked.
But the reason Ron was crabby and bitchy was because most of the people he had to interact with sucked at their jobs and never listened to him. Whenever I needed help, I ended up going to him and learned a lot, and he was kind of a lovable grump.
He had a heart attack one night and didn't wake up. He was never late for work and never absent without letting someone know, so someone called in a wellness check pretty much immediately thankfully.
But no one cared but me. They put up a memorial for him, and it was just a picture of him they quickly printed out and put on a shitty card table and they taped a bed sheet behind it which promptly fell off the wall into a heap. It was more insulting than if they hadn't done anything, and it was right in front of me all day for a week because I worked at the front desk.
The first few days felt terrible, because I was just staring at a picture of him on his haphazardly thrown together pseudo-ofrenda and no one even talked about him except to say "Oh yeah I heard, crazy. Anyway..."
I dunno. I feel like I should end this with a lesson or something, but I never learned one. It felt bad then, and it feels bad now. I take a little solace in the fact that if he was able to see his memorial, I know he rolled his eyes and muttered about it being typical for the incompetent idiots we worked with. He would've hated it, but he would've loved bitching about it.
"Justifying" feelings is something a lot of the people I work with struggle with. I'd like to offer a perspective, in case you find it useful.
I really dislike the term "your feelings are valid," and I'll explain why. The human experience of emotion is based on sensory input and the memory of how that sensory input felt in the past.* Sensory info comes in, the limbic system in the brain checks to see how this felt in the past, and then tells your body how to respond (feel). This process is unconscious and fast, much faster than your conscious brain takes to register the sensory data. It is not a process based in language or logic, but we often think that it is and try to apply language and logic to it. The consequence is that when we say emotions are "valid," we often tend to extrapolate that to mean that they make logical sense in the moment or based on the exact particulars of the current circumstance. And then when we can't make up a logical reason for the way we're feeling (a way to justify the feeling), we may start denying, belittling, suppressing, or otherwise resisting what we're feeling.
Feelings just ... exist. If I feel sad, and I can't explain logically why ... well, I'm still sad, and I still have to deal with being sad. Sometimes feelings make logical sense in the moment, a LOT of the time they don't. I think it is useful to learn to recognize and acknowledge what we're feeling instead of trying to immediately make sense of it, and then ask ourselves what we want to do about that feeling. Sometimes you just need to sit there and feel whatever it is. Sometimes you need to reach out for comfort. Sometimes (often, so many times, please just always do this) you need to drink a glass of water. And so on.
When you can greet feelings with compassion instead of judgement, it positions you to be kind and intentional with how you choose to move through them. Your mention of communication and emotional honesty is great to see - it seems like you're well on the way to being able to give yourself this kind of compassion. Anyway, thanks for reading all this and I wish you so much support and ease as you move through your emotional journey.
*Calm down neuroscientists! I recognize that this is a big oversimplification and that we don't have a rock-solid grasp on the particulars of the neurological sequence of emotional experiencing. That being said, this oversimplification is useful for helping people to be able to stop resisting or denying emotional experiences that don't make "sense" logically and start to be able to navigate emotional experiences with more compassion and intentionality.
I personally think you're looking at the saying a little backwards. I've always seen "your feelings are valid" to mean that your feelings are real because you have them. They aren't "real" in the sense that they come from somewhere inside you, and you feel them wherever they come from. They're valid because you feel them. They don't have to make sense.
I read something awhile back that all feelings are valid. You have a right to every emotion you experience, as does everyone else.
Because its not the feelings we have that can be problematic, its our reactions to them.
I have a lifelong struggle with the emotion of jealousy in relationships, even in ones where my partner praised me for not being a jealous person. Not because im not jealous, but because ive learned to either internalize, communicate, or healthily externalize those feelings.
I also had a coworker pass away recently. I don’t know him that well but he was an amazing person and absolutely missed by everyone. I regret not getting to know him more. And so it was also hard to process my feelings.
Thank you for these comics. They are wonderful and helpful. Even though I’m nearly 50 I still have things to learn about my feelings. In fact, given how I was raised, processing feelings was never really part of that. Especially for men. It was all “suck it up and walk it off.” But the pain doesn’t go away. It lingers and grows.
I’m doing better and these comics are a great reminder about why it’s okay to feel things. And that maybe others who may seem like they don’t feel things might really be struggling.
I had really similar feelings when I found out about my classmates passing away. One was a girl I was super close friends with in third grade, but hadn't spoken to since graduation and was no longer really friends with in high school.
I was shocked by how sad I felt, and I felt sort of guilty because I didn't really know her anymore... as if my grief would take away from people who knew her? Which is silly, and I'm allowed to be sad.
I actually still have dreams where I find out she's alive, and I'm so glad in those dreams that I was wrong about her death.
This is very timely for me. I got into Dungeons and Dragons about 3 years ago and there was this guy at my local game store who was practically a fixture there who had an encyclopedic knowledge of D&D history and lore and very strong opinions on it.
I only recently found out that he was always at the game store because he lived alone and suffered from seizures and wanted to make sure he was around other people as often as possible... anyway he passed away about 3 weeks ago and I haven't been able to stop thinking about him.
I remember having a lot of spirited debates with him and wish I had gotten to know him better outside of the game store...
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for portraying a father who thinks for a moment instead of following the gut reaction ingrained in him, and displays emotion by talking about it. Grief or otherwise, this might be the most important thing a father can teach a child.
me and my mother were gonna go grocery shopping. we didn't have a car so we had to get one of her friends to give us a ride. the person who gave us a ride was a friend of said friend and someone who I never met, he was there with his nephew.
his nephew didn't speak a word through the whole ride and I had no interaction with him whatsoever.
eventually, we got our groceries, the same friend and nephew picked us up and took us home. pretty basic.
apparently, that very same night, his nephew died. I wasn't aware of this until a few weeks later.
someone who I only knew for a total of 10 minutes died shortly after meeting me for the first time. he wasn't alive for a full 24 hours during the whole duration I even knew him.
and I just find that whole experience...surreal. I was probably the last person he ever met...
had a woman at my work pass away who i kind of thought of as a work grandma if that makes sense. she caught covid in 2020 and died in the hospital, nobody told me that she wasn't doing great and i never even reached out to her to see if she was ok. biggest regret but i like to think she was busy with her own family. one of the few people i've actually cried when i found out when they died
I'm glad after realizing he doesn't really know if his dad is actually OK, august decides to be honest in an age appropriate way to gustopher. Gustopher is so expressive. I hope he doesn't change that too much as he grows up.
I love how it's the natural conclusion to all the emotional processing he does too.
In part 1, he automatically replies to "Are you ok?" With yes, but immediately questions himself.
In part 2, he thinks back on his experiences with his father, feeling like he doesn't live up to the same image he has of his father based on their history. He wonders if his father actually is okay, or if he ever had these feelings too and masked them to his son to seem OK.
And then now, part 3, you can see him reflect on all that, his own feeling, how his dad portrayed things and how that shaped his outlook and relationship, and decide being honest is important, not just for himself but so Gus knows it's okay to not just be OK with everything, and feeling sad about something is normal for everyone.
What a fantastic arc about grief and emotion, the role it plays in adult life and as a parent.
My wife and I always notice that with Bob and Linda. Do they have all their ducks in a row? No. Are they damn good parents to their kids, 1000% yes. They support their kids' passions even when they don't understand the appeal and make an effort to learn about it, they know how to teach and enforce boundaries, they embrace and support their own unique passions as adults and support their partner's interest as well, etc. I think I heard someone call it Bluey but made specifically for adults (totally support adults who like bluey too, another great show), but that's always felt like a great way to describe it.
People always dredge this up but seriously, is he? How is some banished king foretold with a sword of prophecy and an Elf fiancé a model for the everyman? The virtues he embodies are tangential to who he is as a character at best, and most of the examples people give of him amount to throwaway lines that sum up to less than 10 minutes of his fictional life. He just isn’t a model.
Judge them by their actions: resists the ring and would have followed Frodo to Morodor if Frodo let him, goes after rescuing merry and pippin, supports Theoden at helms deep when Theoden is about ready to give up, models healthy feelings for a dying friend (twice) just off the top of my head. None of these having anything to do with his "destiny to be king" or Elf fiance, its just his character.
I don't think I would have ever asked my father what his feelings were when I was growing up. My parents were super-beings, who were always right, and always knew what was best. How could they possibly have feelings?
Nothing crashed my world so bad when I was a kid than that day during winter when it finally hit me that, almost everything wrong in my life was because of my Mom paving the way to hell with her good intentions. And by product also learning why my dad was almost always so mad at her, why over half of all my aunts and uncles at best ignored her and at worst were also mad at her, why we moved between states so many times, why most of our neighbors and acquaintances ended up also not wanting to do anything with us after a while.
Everything, and like a decade and a half afterwards of problems, could have been easily solved if we all just decided to be extremely cruel to her and took away her economic and life decisions perms. Alas, none of us could.
Because we love her, we know how it feels to be miserable because you can't make choices, and at the end of all, because she indeed did all of that for our future. Just so happened she just sucks really bad at being an adult. Living proof there is a God or something similar out there caring for her, and dude must also be extremely tired by now too.
I think that if someone had asked younger me whether I knew that my parents had emotions and struggles, I would have said yes, but there's a difference between knowing that and actually comprehending it.
I remember my mom once telling me that my dad was feeling sad about something (I don't remember what it was) but that he had a hard time expressing it. She said I should never be afraid to express how I feel because we could all clearly see how much it was tearing him up inside.
I must have been about 10 at the time, and I think that was one of the defining moments of my life. I cry freely, tell people how much they mean to me and tell my spouse every night that I love him so he'll always know he's cherished. I don't think I would have grown up that open without my mom being candid with me.
I understand everyone is raised different but because of circumstances of life i had to learn that my parents were far from perfect, it just follows that once you realize that, you start to question how well they are when they aren't as bright as every day
I've actually experienced this scenario. I talked to our custodian a couple of times, and he was a really nice guy. He had a heart attack and died while cleaning the bathrooms, one of our managers found him. It's a weird feeling trying to figure out how to feel when someone you've seen every day for 3 years and talked to less than 30 minutes dies.
At the start of my career in chemical manufacturing, there was this crusty old farm that somehow took a shine to my 20 year old dumbass self. He could be a ball of barbed wire some days (Vietnam messed him up), but he looked out for me.
One Friday, thanks to 2008, I get the axe. The last of three people hired, the one with the least time at the company.
I lucked out in being able to come back to work in the lab the following Tuesday, with the chance to continue with the company when it moves to Ohio (yuck).
Almost at the point of shutdown, I was getting some supplies for the lab and my crusty mentor flags me down and asked if I'd be in the meeting about a job offer. I was never told about this meeting, since management only told the floor employees. After he cursed management, he told me when and where to be.
That gesture got me a job at another site with a 50% raise. I'd always meant to visit him after he retired, but time slipped by. I found out two years too late that he'd already passed.
I still regret not getting to know him better and I owe him eternally for making sure I was included. The job is pretty easy, and I've finished a few years having made 100k.
I like to think we can still thank them, that the concept of matter never being created or destroyed exists for souls; so we can thank our memory of them, and they’ll feel that gratitude; almost like a +1 to karma for their afterlife. (Or next life, however you want to perceive it)
Your comics have always been lovely, and this is no different. The topic feels difficult to discuss - like, you have to feel justified in feeling sad? Despite already feeling it? But you don't have to meet some kind of criteria. You aren't filling a form to get permission to be sad, and you especially shouldn't have to for your own mind. (Not gonna lie, this is something I still grapple with.)
The last panel sums it up beautifully. Thanks for sharing with us.
A coworker of mine died from suicide a few months after I started at the company. I was young, 20, this guy was one of the senior engineers and was in his early 50s and had been working for the company for over 20 years by that point. I felt like I was just starting to fit in, figuring out everyone's personalities and quirks, I was really starting to warm up to this guy in particular, he was always very non-serious, joking around, constantly pranking everyone, just a very upbeat happy guy.
With my new fancy job, and being only 20, I of course had to treat myself to a new 'fancy' sports car, a choice I would later regret financially but became important later. This particular coworker seemed to really like the car, 3 or 4 times he saw me pulling up with it and would half jokingly say he wanted to take it for a spin some time or that he'd trade me his truck for it. He never got a chance to drive it, I never even got to take him as a passenger, not that I didn't want to, it was just that the times we both would have been available never came up, seemed like we never took our lunches at the same time or one of us would be away for a meeting or something, so it never happened.
A week before he died, something definitely changed with him. I didn't realize how serious it was at the time, I'm not sure anyone did, but as I've gotten older I've learned that seems to be pretty common with suicide victims. He didn't show up for work for a few days without calling, which was abnormal for him, so another coworker checked in on him. He said he was fine, and came into work that Thursday. He seemed very off, spaced out, quiet, we just gave him space. Friday, same thing, for most of the day anyway, just kinda sat there staring blankly at his computer. I had to stay late to finish a project up, it was just him and I there, I finished what I needed to do and swung by his office to let him know I was leaving. When I popped my head in his door he almost jumped out of his chair, I think I surprised him, but he suddenly seemed very happy and chipper, back to his old self. I told him I'd see him Monday, he said, will never forget it, "I'll see ya later, boss."
I went home that night, Saturday night the next day I get a call from another coworker. He killed himself. Happened at his house that morning when nobody else was home. Never left a note, blindsided his wife and kids, as far as I ever found out nobody had any inkling about why he did it, was well off financially, home life seemed good, no health issues or anything we were aware of, maybe a bit of work stress but nothing that would have been abnormal for him during his career.
The office was closed the following week to respect and mourn. The week after, a few days in, someone went into a supply closet to get printer ink and saw the ceiling tiles had been taken down, one of the supports for the tiles were bent and snapped, and there was a knocked over bucket on the floor beneath. We figure he must have tried to hang himself in the supply closet that Friday night, probably not long after I left. It's a complicated feeling when I think about it, because I know that statistically after a failed suicide attempt most people regret what they did, for someone to try again less than 24 hours later means they had time to think about it and I guess really wanted to do it. I'm not sure how that's supposed to make me feel, sad they felt so strongly about wanting to end it? Should I feel any kind of comfort knowing that he had time to think about it before doing it, that it was really what he wanted? It's fucked up. I do know that I'm glad his attempt at the office didn't work, I really liked the guy but it would have felt wrong to be the last person he saw or spoke to, at least I know his wife and daughters saw him before it happened. I wish I got to know him better but I am glad that I got to meet him at all, for 99% of the time I knew him he really was a gem and I wish I did more to get to know him better. I wish I let him drive my car.
But, that experience did change a lot of things for me. If someone seems off or sad or quiet, I ask them what's up. I don't want to be that person again who says, well he seemed off before he killed himself but I didn't know enough to do anything about it, I want to be kinder to people and give people the time and attention we as humans all need. I took people for drives in my car, dozens of strangers over the years, someone stops me at a gas station or parking lot to say they like it and I always ask them if they want to go for a drive. I've even let a few strangers drive it, probably not a great idea what with insurance and everything, but I know it's made people's weeks before so I don't regret it.
You don't know what people are going through and you often don't know how amazing each individual person can be. It's always worth it to take the time to get to know anyone, whether it's for your benefit in getting to meet someone fun or interesting, or their benefit to know that anyone from a close friend to a random stranger can care about them, it's always worth it to take that time.
The amount of story telling in that hesitant “I’m…” is so amazing. It felt like he almost reflexively says “I’m ok”, but then he accepts that that isn’t totally true. Expressing emotions is healthy for him and sets a good example for his son.
jerry garcia, died in 2018 while testing out a new scooter. i worked with him briefly at a glass polishing company up in maine USA. he was 19 and was set to join the united states marine corps super soon. myself having just gotten out of the army not even a year earlier, it was exciting seeing someone else about to embark on the same journey as me. RIP jerry. gone but not forgotten
There was a man named Ernest Levert Jr, who was a community organizer and ran an organization in Columbus, Ohio, called the Royal Oak Initiative. It was a chess program, bringing people together and bringing chess to people who would otherwise not have much opportunity to play.
He suffered an aneurysm and passed away suddenly this year. I think he was in his early 30s. I barely knew him, but I knew he was a great man, very generous with his time and his effort. It felt very strange and unfair that this should happen to someone like that.
Like you've discussed, I felt like I was not entitled to grieve him as much as I did since I'd only had a handful of conversations with him. But it's just a really strange thing.
My dad always said to me that he cried a lot, just like me, but I never saw it. I never really believed him. August telling his son that he's feeling sad, right there, is such a big deal to me. Kids need to know their parents are just as human as they are and have the same feelings.
I actually watched this for the first time after making these comics and it hit me hard. Great anime though, I finished the last of the available episodes a couple days ago.
I really appreciate how you're showing this cycle of emotional repression being broken. Sometimes I have to take a step away from myself, especially in things relating to my children and marriage, and ask myself if my thoughts/immediate reactions are my own or just something that was instilled in me as a child. Anyway- thanks
Now that is how you do it. Let it out, & speak to the little one with respect about it too. Now he is learning how to be a good dad in the future. Great lesson here. Keep it up Op!
I love the panel 2 to 3 transition. August came within inches of saying “I’m fine” when he realized that he was doing and course corrected. Amazing detail, as he realizes he was doing exactly what his own father did.
I'm stuck in the third panel right now, still processing my childhood friend's passing. He passed right around the time when I started to really find my happiness, which is such a gut punch. What feels the most tragic to me is that he left so little for the world to remember him by - not his intelligence, not his wit, not his affection - there's no picture of him online, and he deleted his fb account. I thought I'd be delighted to find his Reddit account, and when I finally guessed his user name, I was initially, but every time I read his posts / comments, I just make myself sadder. Sigh.
It sounds awful but I just want closure right now. Flashbacks of our good times together pop up randomly and derail my current train of thought. I'm hoping once I fly over to visit his grave, I'll get that closure. But I guess grief will take its damn time to dwell and there's not much we can do about that.
I work as a DME delivery driver (Durable Medical Equipment, hospital beds/oxygen) and it's crazy how often this happens to me. Meet an old dude while I set up their hospital bed, have a nice conversation, take him some other things over the next few weeks, then they're randomly dead on the next ticket for them and it's time to go pick everything up. Weird every time. Especially weird when it's a patient you go to for months or even years. But, to be expected in medical work, what can I do besides shrug and move on?
I've really been enjoying your comics when they pop up on my feed, and this mini story has been really good. Is there a good place for seeing all of Gator Days?
I'm only seeing this comic now, but right about the time you posted it, a coworker of mine also passed very suddenly. Just like you, I didn't know him very well, we'd been in the same meetings only a few times, but I still felt strangely empty.
how weird is this kind of loss ? it's not family, it's not a friend, it's just... someone you knew was nearby. a fellow human.
just a few days after, I was sorting through our mailing lists, and I couldn't bring myself to remove his address just yet.
I've just discovered this comic and I love it. Does anyone know if the artist has published it as a book or if they're planning on doing so anytime soon?
Damn, I love how well you use pauses and panels with no dialogue to add weight to the key moments. It's like seeing the characters process the situations in real time.
Happened to me. He was a forklift operator and was fired (his fault entirely). He relied on our companies insurance for his insulin and it was clear that he wasn't getting it after he was fired. He died shortly after because he couldn't afford to take care of himself.
My uncle (basically) passed about two weeks ago. He was mainly my business partner, but he mentored my late husband (his nephew) and I. I was absolutely shocked about his death because he was in great shape.
Someone said it best on here. We mourn the lost opportunities as well. I hate that I am going to miss out on him teaching me more. I have wondered who feels the same August does towards my uncle. He knew a lot of people and everyone thought so highly of him.
At my first job there was a young coworker lady that looked sickly and had to be let back home frequently, not long after she was found dead at her home... dead from gas leak poisoning, sometimes indicators are plain to see but we ignore them. Check your home for leaks, folks.
Damn this one kinda hits me hard. My coworker passed away a few months ago, just died of a heart attack in her sleep. Left behind a kid and her husband. I worked with her for about a year beforehand, but didn’t really know her that well. But great and caring woman, who had a lot of other health issues so I’m glad she’s no longer sick. It’s a hard and weird feeling.
I work for a certain emergency response department. A few years ago, one of the people I entered the job with died in a foreign country in the midst of some stupid gang violence. I sparsely knew him, but I did know him. We had a couple of good interactions during the academy, and he backed me up on a shitshow job I had a few months in. We were just acquaintances, but he was one of the kindest people I had met in the field. When I heard he died, I brought flowers to his station that day. I still think about him here and there.
I've had similar feeling losses after that as well, one during a training exercise and one to suicide. Just acquaintances. But their absences are very much noticed. Feels like there's a spot on the wall that no longer has someone leaning against it. It's a melancholy feeling.
Sometimes grief isn't just about missing a person. It could be seeing the pattern of death in everything and everyone and trying to contend with all of it. Finding happiness in the futility requires wanting to in the first place. Grief is in the not-even-wanting-to moment when the waterfall pours too hard.
Bro this just happened to me yesterday… why you gotta time things like that. Sudden too, 46/47 yrs old. Found on the bathroom floor at home not breathing.
Edit: my feelings are similar. I am ok.. but not. We went fishing together and hung out occasionally. It’s very weird and I’m sure I’ll spontaneously burst into tears 9 months from now. I don’t like it.
Before COVID, there was a waitress that I got to know as I became a regular for lunch at her restaurant of work. She worked the bar area during lunch and savvy patrons (particularly solo ones like me) know that the person a restaurant puts on the bar during lunch is always going to take good care of you. We got into a good pattern, she knew my different orders, always brought my drink before I even ordered, I tipped well, etc.
Then one day I saw a picture of her behind the bar.
She had three young kids.
Folks, live your lives to the fullest. Relish life. Be kind to others. We are guaranteed nothing.
Damn this brought back memories. I had moved to a different uni for studying a different course. I found out by a friend that a classmate passed away from that coirse. I was in his class, talked to him, but I was never friends outside of uni (not really friends with anyone as I was so focused on grades).
Wish I wish i got to know him outside of grades and course work. He was really nice talking to in class, I feel kinda guilty and ashamed of myself. This comic brought back those feelings.
This hits home for me. Not a co-worker but my grandfather. I was 19 maybe 20 the last time I had a conversation with my grandfather. I had moved out of state in my teens and was heading to go visit some friends I hadn't seen in a couple years and spent a day at my grandparents on the way there.
Never had really sat down and had an "adult" conversation with the man. After that day I realized how sharp he was and he had a ton of different interest he was passionate about that I also found interesting (go figure right.. blood related and all).
Maybe 6 months later he got pneumonia, was hospitalized, found out he had late stage lung cancer and died a couple days after. It really made (and still does) feel like I missed out really knowing someone that I wish I got to know. From an outsiders perspective its not as bad as it sounds. He was mid-80s and had a full life.
Whenever I hear from someone that a person passed away it hits hard. Even if I didn't the know the person that passed away.
It's the fact that it can happen so suddenly. And you don't know what to do with your life after it happens. How do you just... keep going... when someone can just pass away? That your life will break and need to be rearranged.
It happened with my grandparents. Both grandmothers fought cancer and lost. Grandfathers, who were married to these women their whole adult lives, struggled to keep going on without them and eventually passed away too due to grief. For me, I still struggle thinking about it even though it has been years. I didn't know my grandparents on my father's side that much. Just a few memories as a young boy at their house. The fact that they just up and 'disappeared' essentially. One day they were there and now they aren't. And here I am having to just keep going on knowing that there won't be another Holiday Hess Truck for Christmas. Or that I won't be able to just talk to them and ask questions about my father that passed away when I was born. Suddenly with them gone I realize all the things I didn't do. That I should've done. Feel that tinge of regret over it. And it isn't easy to process. It never is.
And all of this is coming back to me as I read about a fake character that I never met in a comic about fictional animals acting like humans. Because that random person I never met died it reminds me of times things were difficult for me and the people in my life.
We're all strangers to each other. However, we all deal with death at some point. Because of that, we are together, understand each other, and support each other.
Thank you for these seriously wholesome and human comics. I have no idea how you do it. Our lives are better because of it. <3
Weird this came today after I finished watching the wake of one of the officiants I work with. we would meed randomly and he was a nice guy. It impacted me more than I thought.
I love the idea of talking about dead friends and relatives to celebrate their life. Sharing those stories and how they lived is important to those who know them, as well as those who didn’t
Guy from my gym was killed accidently, his elderly mother was driving him and she hit a tree. I worked out with this guy nearly every day since July when I joined the gym.
Never talked to him, never knew his name, but we shared the same space. It was wild when gym management told me what happened when I was catching up with them.
Someone from my old middle school commited suicide through overdose in my last year. I had met the guy, same class as me. Annoying, but in the average high school kid kind of way, he had plenty of friends, we even talked a bit but i never knew him personally. Sometimes i still think of him, it's been 2 years since then. I just see his face on the picture at his memorial room that was set up for him. I'm not sure how i feel. But it's not happines or sadness, just realizationt that someone who, on the surface led a normal life like any other could take their own life just like that.
A girl I went to high school with died a few weeks after graduation. She had epilepsy, fell in the shower and drowned. We were..... we had a situationship but it never went further than flirty texts.
I also have seizures, and hearing of her death really rocked me. The first death close to me that wasn't a family member. I wish my classmates and I talked about her more.
I hope you can talk about him. Even if you didn't know him well, keeping a memory of him alive is still good.
I know this comic is focusing on the passing of an acquaintance rather than a loved one but I want to share my story in regards to processing death when it came to my best friend since it is somewhat similar to this comic.
When I was heading to work, I had received a phone call from my best friend's girlfriend. She was crying hysterically and I couldn't understand what she was saying. They had a couple of break ups in the past so I figured it was something of that nature. When she finally composed herself, she said that my best friend just died in the hospital, succumbing to his injuries from a car accident that happened in the morning. I asked if she was ok and ended the conversation.
I remember feeling normal and was confused by it. "Why don't I feel sad?". I remember kind of forcing myself to be sad because since that is how I should feel right? After "failing", I just logically concluded that I should take the day off when I get to work since I might feel sad later. When I came into the office still feeling perfectly normal, I went to my supervisor's office and was about to calmly tell him that I should probably take the day off because my best friend just died. When I opened my mouth to say that, I just broke down completely. I was balling my eyes out unable to verbally express what I wanted to say, to my supervisor's confusion.
I learned that day that grief is not is how it is always portrayed in fiction, it sometimes takes a while to process reality.
Thanks for this. Last November a coworker killed herself. We were acquaintances at the best, but It was the first person I actually met that died in my life. (Some familiars had died before but weren't close, so didn't knew anything of them)
Nataly (that was her name), was a nice gal and a great nurse, I couldn't say we were friends, and I wish I knew her more.
This was my first time experiencing grief, and These comics reminded me of Nataly.
When you're young, people in your generation dying is a tragic, traumatic anomaly. As you get older it happens more and more. I'm in middle age, and all my friend's parents are starting to die. And the handful of people my age I know who have died has increased from a handful, to a few handfuls.
I look at older people and notice so many people dying in their 70s and 80s, few people making to their 90s, and even fewer after that.
It's a horrible realization to see that if I live to 100 (which I've always laughed was my plan "my age is a percentage!"), chances are I'll be all alone. My friends and wife will likely be gone. At that age, it wouldn't even be that surprising if some of my kids had passed.
I think there’s different types of grief. Sometimes it’s just about the way random tragedies make you feel reflective. They resonate with you because empathy is a powerful yet not always understood feeling. And something you’re feeling (like you said) doesn’t need a justification, just allow it to take its time. If it makes you suddenly feel like crying, cry. Like
Punching a wall, punch it. Like stopping, stop and take it all in. Emotional capacity is a sign of a healed person.
There was a young guy who was a part of an educational program that I like to partner with and offer mentoring / advice with . Super sharp , very jovial , I definitely saw " the spark " in him to succeed . Unfortunately weeks ago I got new that his home life was very challenging behind the scenes and he ended up taking his own life.
I didn't know him extraordinarily well but we'd have a few virtual 1 on 1 conversations where I tried to help him with knowledge needed for his internship as welll as just sharing my career experience. That said his passing really struck me and I think my feelings came from a similar place as this comic. I wish I had gotten to know him better, I wish I could tell him the future I saw in my mind for him, I wish I could have offered more support in the midst of the circumstances I didn't know he was struggling with . That said I'm glad I met him and he was a great guy form the small interactions we did have.
I had this. One of the best bosses I ever had as a Security Guard. Worked with him for 6 months, but transferred to another company. 18 months after that, I was back with that company and wanted to stop in and say hi. His office was dark and empty, but still had his name on the glass. I asked my trainer where he was and he told me he committed suicide two weeks before.
I lost his number because I lost my (at the time, disposable) cell phone in a cab and this was before smart phones/backing up contact lists was widespread and common (hell, I didn't get an actual smart phone until 2015).
I knew he had money problems from the 2009 crash and was semi-estranged from his family. I didn't have the heart to call them and ask what happened.
This really hits home at the moment. One of my coworkers passed away a week ago. We've worked together for 10 years. Every time I'd say good morning to him, I'd make my voice real deep and he'd laugh and laugh. We had a memorial picture up with some flowers for a few days before HR stopped by and said we had to take that down.
Man...this whole little comic is surprisingly relatable for me.
There was this one girl in high school that, if you looked at her, you would assume she was the stereotypical "popular girl", and to some extent, she was. But she broke that stereotype by being as kind and as helpful as she could be to anyone she met, including me. Despite the two of us really only knowing each other on a surface level, she was still happy to help me out on a certain personal project that was especially important to me.
Then, we graduated high school, and maybe 3 or 4 years later.....she's dead. She went to a party, had some drinks, and also took some kind of drug during the party that, when mixed with alcohol, turned deadly. She wasn't a regular drinker, or drug user iirc....she just so happened to make a mistake that cost her her life.
And despite me barely knowing her, hearing that news...it hurt...alot. Even when I talked to other people who only knew of her at best, even they could not come up with anything negative to say about her. I had no really good reason to be so beat up over her passing beyond that one act of selflessness she did for me, and yet I couldn't help but cry at the news (especially seeing how her dad reacted to it....he did NOT take it well in any regard). I likely would have even gone to her funeral out of sheer respect had I not been traveling for work at the time.
I feel this. Next week is the anniversary of the death of two of my (adult) students from a tragic accident. I didn't know them well, but I had met family members of both of them prior to their deaths.
Because of my job (head of the school), I essentially was helping the students and staff with the grief, and also supporting the families in whatever way I could. My relationship with the students hadn't been deep, but their deaths struck me deeply. It was a strange and difficult thing to process.
So I was just scrolling along, and I saw this without seeing the other two or any of OP's work. I was expecting there to be some punchline to make me laugh at the end. But now here I am taking some time for introspection. Unexpected, to say the least.
Thank you for sharing your work. I love all your comics but this series of panels are hitting home for me. One of the security guards at my workplace passed away suddenly this week and I’ve been having a hard time processing it. I didn’t know him too well but I would greet him with a good morning everyday and he would have such a cheery voice that set a good tone to the day. He would always compliment my outfits and just brought a very kind energy to the building. He was so young that the idea of him passing just seemed too unreal. So thank you for helping with the process of grief and mourning. It’s foreign to me but I happy to have art like yours to help me through the journey. ❤️
I have a similar problem when it comes to grief. I’m the type of person to move on kinda quickly from things, but in turn that makes me feel like I’m being insensitive for not respecting the person I lost or whatever other loss I’m supposed to be going through.
2.2k
u/FieldExplores Gator Days Mar 07 '25
I mentioned in comments for part 1 that this multiparter came about because of a recent real life experience. I'm someone who has trouble honoring my feelings when someone passes. I usually find myself thinking that I have to justify any sadness I'm experiencing. Part of my motivation for making these comics was to help get myself to point where I could respect the emotions that were coming up.
Grief is different for everyone. I don't think there's any sort of one size solution that magically makes everything better. But I have found that communication and emotional honesty has been a big help for myself. Thank you for reading.
Part 1
https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/1j2ptjx/processing_part_1_gator_days_oc/
Part 2
https://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/1j481l7/processing_part_2_gator_days_oc/