"I don't think Dad is breathing."

Hi. I'm Jan.

I woke up at 2am to my sister's voice.

"I don't think Dad is breathing."

We checked his pulse. He was gone. I felt the floor collapse.

It was December 2020, and New Year's Eve was just around the corner. My family was broken in a way I hadn't seen before. It was the first time in my life I couldn't picture a tomorrow.

But I'd seen God show up for us before. So I prayed the only prayer I could muster...

"Thank you for all the prayers you're going to answer and how you'll answer them in the next year."

That year really tested us...

...I tried to be the "hinged" one...

When my dad died, I didn't fall apart the way my sister did. She wore a loosely tied robe for months, ate tears for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and couldn't get through her eulogy at the funeral. I watched her and thought, "Get it together, Dad would be so annoyed."

So I tried to be the hinged one.

I made myself small so she could take up space. I stayed steady, so my mom didn't have to worry about two of us. I didn't cry in front of people. I just kept going.

What actually helped wasn't therapy or grief books or sympathy cards. It was when people showed up and talked about their own loss, and all I had to do was sit there in my sweats, hair in a bun, and take it in.

But people stop showing up. Not because they don't care. Because life moves on.

And grief weirdos like us are kind of still stuck.

That's why I started Kasama Letters.

Kasama is Filipino for "with" and these letters the version of someone sitting with you on this brutal rollercoaster ride called grief.

I share the raw moments. The failed escape attempts. The ways grief shape-shifts into a stomach ache, a personality change, a lost appetite for things you used to love. The life lessons you only learn when you finally stop fighting it and start carrying it.

Faith runs through every letter, because it's the thread that held my family together. .

We moved forward that year. Not in a straight line, zigzaggy, honestly. We're weathered. But we can laugh together now. And somewhere in that zigzag I realized I wanted to be the person who shows up for someone else.

So, here I am.