The Life I Didn’t Choose — And the Strength I Found Along the Way
When I sat down to write this, I drifted into the version of life that should have been. The one where the people I love most are still here, present, and woven into my everyday reality. In that version, my younger brother Manu is alive, sending sarcastic messages and calling me Didi (older sister)—a word I ache to hear. Losing him felt like losing part of my identity as an older sister.
And in that same version, my father is still here too—gentle, steady, ending every call with “I love you.” He was my protector and my constant reminder that I was never alone.
But that isn’t the world I wake up to now.
Grief often feels like waking in an alternate universe you never imagined. Life is predictable one moment, then suddenly unrecognizable. I now live in a world where two of the most important men in my life—my father and my brother—exist only in memory, photographs, and the love I carry forward. Losing a sibling and a parent so close together defies nature’s order. Speaking at my younger brother’s funeral and then preparing for my father’s were moments I was never ready for. Are we ever?
My father’s loss was sudden. I spoke to him one day, and the next, he was in the ICU, declared brain dead. Just like that, another funeral. Another goodbye I wasn’t prepared to say. Both deaths stole my breath, my sense of time, and parts of who I believed myself to be.
Manu wasn’t just my sibling; he was the person I imagined growing old with. Siblings walk beside us, they witness our childhoods, anchor our present, and shape our shared future. He was brilliant, compassionate, stubborn, spiritual, and far too young to leave. His diagnosis and decline felt like watching life unravel in slow motion. As a dentist, I understood the medical jargon; as a sister, nothing made sense. As a daughter, I couldn’t protect either of them.
Even as his body weakened, Manu carried a rare clarity. In his book Life Interrupted: Dr. Dua’s Survival Guide, he wrote with the insight of someone forced to confront mortality far too early. He hid much of his suffering from us, navigating treatment alone during COVID. His reflections became his legacy, life lessons penned from a 34-year-old facing his own mortality.
When Manu died, the world lost an extraordinary human. I lost the keeper of my past and part of my future.
Grief became my shadow. It is quiet, heavy, and constant.
People imagine grief as dramatic, but mine showed up in subtle ways: a tightening in the throat, an inability to breathe deeply, a silent ache on ordinary afternoons. With aging parents, a dental practice, and children relying on me, I often carried my grief while trying to appear whole. Some days it came like a tsunami, some days as gentle tears, and some days as warm memories.
At my father’s funeral, I remember feeling angry that Manu wasn’t physically there to share old memories or inside jokes. But I also felt comfort knowing Manu would be the first to welcome our father into the world beyond. My dad missed Manu deeply—his heart, both physically and emotionally, could not carry that weight forever. His sudden cardiac arrest was the moment his grief ended.
In the aftermath, I began speaking on oral cancer, grief, and the emotional weight healthcare providers carry. None of this was part of my career plan. But grief reshapes purpose. It pulls you toward the work your heart refuses to ignore.
People assume resilience is loud and fearless, but resilience is quiet.
It is the choice to keep living when the people you love can no longer.
It is the courage to find meaning after life has stripped meaning away.
It is learning to breathe again, with pain and gratitude coexisting.
Healing, for me, wasn’t an upward climb. It was a daily practice: opening the blinds on dim mornings, saying their names without whispering, allowing tears without apology, remembering that joy is not betrayal, realizing that grief is simply love transformed.
Losing my brother taught me the pain of losing a companion.
Losing my father taught me the pain of losing a protector.
Together, these losses taught me the depth of my own strength and the expansiveness of love that continues long after life ends. Their absence created space in me I wish I didn’t have, but it also created capacity: for empathy, presence, purpose, and helping others heal.
If you are grieving a parent, a sibling, or anyone who shaped your heart, I want you to know this:
You are not alone.
You are not broken.
You are not meant to “move on.”
You are learning to live in a world forever changed—
And that is a profound act of resilience.
My father lives through the values he instilled in me.
My brother lives through the mission that drives me.
They both live in every story I share, every patient I screen, every talk I give, and every grieving heart I sit beside.
This is not the life I chose.
But it is the life I honor—with love, purpose, and truth.
Knowing that I play many roles in life as a sister, daughter, wife, mother, dentist, owner, and more. I have people relying on me. I have to show up and can’t have grief steal more from me.
And in rebuilding myself, piece by piece, I learned that resilience is not something you’re born with—
It is something you become.
Quietly.
Softly.
Bravely.
Resilient AF.
To reach Dr Parul Dua MakkarVisit her at www.parulduamakkar.com or follow her on Instagram @duagoodjob.
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