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Health

27-year-old who died of cancer left behind final advice that left the internet in tears

"Don't feel pressured to do what other people might think is a fulfilling life. You might want a mediocre life and that is so OK."

Photo courtesy of Remembering Holly Butcher/Facebook used with permission.

Holly Butcher left behind her best life advice before she passed away at 27.

The world said goodbye to Holly Butcher, a 27-year-old woman from Grafton, Australia.

Butcher had been battling Ewing's sarcoma, a rare bone cancer that predominantly affects young people. In a statement posted on Butcher's memorialized Facebook account, her brother, Dean, and partner, Luke, confirmed the heartbreaking news to friends.

"It is with great sadness that we announce Holly's passing in the early hours of this morning," they wrote on Jan. 4, 2018. "After enduring so much, it was finally time for her to say goodbye to us all. The end was short and peaceful; she looked serene when we kissed her forehead and said our final farewells. As you would expect, Holly prepared a short message for you all, which will be posted above."

Butcher's message, which Dean and Luke did, in fact, post publicly shortly thereafter, has brought the internet to tears.

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Health

Widow defends woman who filmed herself picking up her husband's ashes and grieving

"I wish I had any video evidence of how this felt… Grief needs a witness."

Photo by Fa Barboza on Unsplash, Nora McInerny/Facebook (used with permission)

Nora McInerny explains why someone would make their grief public.

There are basically two universal truths about grieving a loved one. One, there is no "normal" way to grieve—it's entirely individual. And two, no one should judge another person's grief process.

A video of a woman picking up her husband's ashes started an important conversation about what grief looks like and why someone would choose to share such a personal moment with the world.

Adriana Sansam's husband, Eric, died unexpectedly in the spring of 2023 at age 30, turning the beautiful life they were building with their three small children upside down. Since Eric's death, Sansam has been sharing snippets of her grieving process on her Instagram page, and one of those snippets was a video of her in her car before and after picking up Eric's ashes. We see her break down before she leaves the car and again after she returns and cradles the urn that holds her husband's remains.

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Mental Health

Man receives phone call from deceased father, proving that grief is like glitter

"Grief is like glitter. You never know when it's going to show up sometimes."

Man's phone call from deceased dad is lesson on grief

Grief is such a strong emotion that most people don't exit this earth having skipped the experience. When grieving the loss of a loved one in the early days, the grief can be so strong that it feels like physical pain. You may start to believe that you've cried so much that there must be something medically wrong with you for your body to still be producing tears. There's no placating cliché about grief that can make the early moments of it more tolerable.

But as people move past the active grieving stage, it contorts itself into something more tolerable that allows you to continue daily obligations before it changes again. Once years pass, grief becomes sort of like a silent passenger holding a jack-in-the-box. You find yourself having full on belly laughs again, feeling quite normal when suddenly out pops that dang clown from the depths of the box.

One man took to his TikTok account, dadchats, to share his experience with a surprise moment of grief for his father that passed away three years prior. It's the perfect depiction of the realities of grieving a profound loss.


"Last night my dead father called me on his cellphone," he starts the video. "It's 9:30 p.m. and I'm watching the Packers vs Taylor Swift game when all of a sudden my phone goes off and for the past five months if I get a call that late at night it's either about a vehicle warranty or it's about getting more printer ink."

The grieving son jokes about not having a printer before explaining how his deceased father called him. Turns out, it wasn't his father, likely much to is relief and simultaneous disappointment. The call was from his mother who never stopped paying for his father's phone unbeknownst to the man picking his heart up off of the floor after seeing "dad" pop up on his phone screen. He explains that his mother only ever calls him from her home phone so this call was sort of a jump scare of the worst kind.

@dadchats

Grief still knows my number

The man got emotional talking about the deep yearning you feel when missing a parent who has passed away. He revealed that his dad dying was a fear he had since childhood due to how old his father was when he was born so he stocked up on voicemails to avoid forgetting his dad's voice. After a few more tear filled moments, the grieving son gives a bit of advice.

"If you're struggling, especially just out of the blue, that's ok, that happens. That's normal, just sit in it. Grieve with it, feel it. It doesn't go away I don't think, it certainly hasn't for me, it still feels as fresh today as it did three years ago."

Viewers of his heartfelt video flocked to the comments to leave words of encouragement and to detail their own experiences with grief. It was truly a moment of what community can look like online.

"Your[sic] absolutely right that the first thing you forget is the sound of their voice! I so badly wish I could still hear the sound of my mom's voice," one person writes.

"Hits home! I called my dad every night for years and kept picking up the phone for months only to remember he won't answer," another admits.

"Grief is like glitter. You never know when it's going to show up, sometimes," someone relates.

That commenter is right, grief is like glitter. No matter how long ago you handled glitter you'll still find little sparkly flecks of it every where you go.

Pop Culture

'Princess Bride' star Mandy Patinkin shared a moving detail about the film with a grieving woman

Two souls connecting over the loss of their fathers. (Phew, grab a tissue for this one, folks.)

via Mandy Patinkin / TikTok

There was an emotional exchange on TikTok between two people who lost their fathers to cancer. One was actor Mandy Patinkin, the other was TikTok user Amanda Webb.

Patinkin currently stars on "The Good Fight" but one of his most famous roles is Inigo Montoya in the 1987 classic "The Princess Bride." In the film, Montoya is a swordsman who is obsessed with confronting a six-fingered man who killed his father.

Webb recently lost her father Dan to mantle cell lymphoma. She had heard a rumor that Patinkin used his father's death from cancer as motivation in a pivotal scene where he confronts the six-fingered Count Rugen (Christopher Guest) in a duel.

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