“It’s a Long Story”: Reflections on Grief and Loneliness

Peter Samuel is an aspiring communications professional from London. After losing his dad to pancreatic cancer in August 2025, his grief led him to reflect more deeply on life, loneliness and identity after loss. He enjoys writing and shared his story in the hope that others navigating bereavement feel understood and less alone.

07:57, 9th August 2025. After 20 months of ferocious battle with pancreatic cancer, I watch my dad take his last breath, a sight ingrained in my memory. A chapter of my life ended, and the next one had just begun.

Alongside so many feelings, during my dad's battle I felt so unfortunate for myself. Thinking that, as well as losing my dad, I'm losing a key time to be social and explore the world as a young adult. What followed would show me that these thoughts were just one part of a much deeper contemplation of life.

After his passing, there was a real grey time of not finding amusement in anything I used to fantasise about. The following month, my mum’s aunt (we called her grandmother as she was so important and supportive to us) passed away. My family travelled to Belgrade for a few days for the funeral, but I stayed an extra few days, allegedly to help my mum but really, I needed to escape the world I no longer felt part of and sit with my thoughts.

The day after my siblings left, I climbed to the top of the castle in Kalemegdan and sat there observing the world. The landscape was picturesque, the weather was perfect, the birds were chirping and families were together smiling, a scene that would usually make me emotional, and still, I didn't care.

As I watched the riverfront, where Sava met Danube, I listened to some deep heartfelt classics me and my dad loved, like Vienna (Billy Joel), Take It Easy (Eagles) and Everybody's Talkin' (Harry Nilsson). These songs that I had heard hundreds of times felt so different now but were still important to that experience. Sat there for hours, I observed the same world I had grown up in, but with a fresh pair of eyes thinking and observing completely differently. I felt separated from even myself, not recognising my own reactions, only belonging in physical form.

Loneliness is complex. For me, it wasn't that I didn't have people care for me, but the unique loneliness that grief created was that nobody carried the exact memories, relationship and future I lost. The only person I wanted to have a conversation with was my dad.

Losing him at 25 caused me to suddenly find myself thinking about life, meaning and purpose. These topics don't typically dominate the thoughts of young adults but here I was wanting to discuss them. It didn't feel like a natural conversation with anyone, and I didn't want to burden them with topics that only I desired to talk about.

In essence, I crossed a threshold that nobody else seemed to be standing on with me.

Inspired by the countless travelling films I watched following my dad's passing ('Into the Wild' I related to and religiously recommend to everyone), I went backpacking across Southeast Asia to finally get that freedom I craved and to start a journey to understand myself.

During my travels, I often departed from groups of friends I really enjoyed the company of. I didn't depart because I couldn't talk to them, but because the experience I sought and needed could never have involved them.

My trip was a deep journey and taught me so much. It helped me come to terms with my dad, but it also made me confront a question head on: who am I when nobody is watching? I made notes across my journey about what I wanted in this life and what was important for me to remember.

Reflecting on my story, it's not that I was in a "bad" place before; it was essential to who I am and where I am now. It's also not about me feeling the negatives of being lonely, but more about me discovering what loneliness is and how it can affect people. Since returning, I can better recognise those who’re impacted by loneliness, especially some of my elderly customers at my coffee shop. I know I can’t take away what they’re carrying, but I can make them feel seen. In my experience, loneliness becomes less frightening when somebody acknowledges it’s there and tries to understand what you’re saying, even if they haven’t lived the same experience.

Lastly, whilst I was travelling, when people found out I directed a coffee shop, they always asked "how come?" (my dad was unwell, so I directed, and then he passed away which left me in charge), to which I almost always responded, "It's a long story". That is a form of loneliness. A larger-than-life conversation that felt too awkward for what we’ve decided is acceptable table talk.

But you know, I've found that while people will never understand the real grief I think about when explaining why I ran a coffee shop, perhaps that is part of being human. We all carry experiences too large to be captured in a passing conversation.

Loneliness begins when we believe we must carry them alone.