Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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A stranger messaged me for encouraging words as his father had passed away the night before.

Here’s what I sent:

Be the man he’d want you to be.

Instead of focusing on your sadness, focus on helping everyone else through theirs.

Use the proximity of his death to get you to take the actions you were too afraid to take before. Because the window of time where his death affects you will be finite. But the changes you make can be everlasting.

If you live his values, he lives on through you.

And ask yourself a scary question: how can this make me better? Then answer it.

Realize that the length of time you mourn has nothing to do with how much you loved him.

You don’t have to be sad to prove to yourself that you loved him.