How I Would Spend One More Day With My Daughter

Jacqueline Dooley
6 min readNov 7, 2021
Ana, age 8 — Photo by Author

Some losses are so monumental they defy any attempt we make to categorize or define them. To write about this kind of loss, for me, is a lifelong process. When my daughter died, I wasn’t sure how to reconcile the way I was grieving with the way I thought I was supposed to grieve — namely, in five stages which would ultimately resolve into something like acceptance.

Jacqueline Dooley

Essayist, content writer, bereaved parent. Bylines: Human Parts, GEN, Marker, OneZero, Washington Post, Al Jazeera, Pulse, HuffPost, Longreads, Modern Loss