Grief-Stricken Woman Keeps Texting Late Dad's Phone, Then She Gets a Reply

A woman mourning the sudden death of her father received an unwelcome surprise after texting his phone to say how much she missed him.

The death of a parent represents a seismic moment in anyone's life, whether the child left behind is young or well into their adult years. For Nilufar Nizam, the sudden loss of her father, Murad, in January of this year is one she is still trying to process.

A study published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry laid bare the impact this kind of loss can have on an adult child. The findings highlighted a number of initial symptoms among those grieving the loss of a parent, including sleeping difficulties, work struggles and problems getting along with certain people.

Other, more residual reactions, included becoming upset when thinking about a parent, experiencing pain when recalling memories about the mom or dad lost or becoming visibly upset when thinking about them.

"He passed away in his sleep, two weeks after his 51st birthday," she told Newsweek. "He was perfectly healthy, and I think that's why it's so much harder for me because even if he was sick before, I would've known to say goodbye and had more time with him."

Over the past few months, Nizam said she had been fighting many "inner battles," trying to simply reconcile what had happened in her head.

"It's never easy losing a parent. It comes with a lot of unfamiliar emotions. You don't know what to feel, and how to feel. Or some days not to feel anything at all," she said. "It's hard to believe that he is gone, and I don't know if I'm capable of accepting that yet, and that's why I believe I texted his number to bring me some type of closure."

Murad had always been someone his daughter felt comfortable talking to about anything when he was alive. "He always gave the best advice," she said. "It was like he had a gift for reading people, and every time I had a problem with anyone or anything, his advice, opinion or judgment would always be true."

It was a support he continued to provide even after his death. "I started texting him about a month after he died, because that's what I would usually do when he was alive," Nizam said. "The messages brought me a lot of comfort."

The messages continued for several months until one day, Nizam's "heart dropped" when she received a reply.

"I'm sorry," the message read. "This message just got delivered. I guess they gave his number away." Murad's phone number had been allocated to someone else.

"I honestly felt betrayed at first," she said. "I asked myself 'how come it's so easy for everyone else in the world to move on, and for the number to be given away this easily?' I know I might have sounded selfish but I was just very angry, I felt like again I lost him all over him."

She began to blame herself for failing to prevent his number from being given away. "

"I thought I could've prevented this. Perhaps I could've called his phone line to keep his number or continued paying for the line. I just didn't think of these possibilities, since this was my first experience with losing a person I deeply loved," she said.

Nizam is still coming to terms with her loss, but she has taken some solace from knowing there are others out there still grieving like she does. She discovered that after sharing a video to TikTok detailing her experience.

"Father's Day was approaching and I had been feeling overwhelmed and sad that he isn't here," she said. "I just decided to post that thinking maybe someone can find closure from my post and for them to know they aren't alone. I realized once it went viral that it actually helped me in my healing journey, reading all the comments."

One TikTok user told her: "I sent my dad a photo of my wedding dress after he passed and got a text back from whoever had gotten his number after he passed."

Another user commented, "I was receiving voicemails from a daughter missing her mom. I never reached out to tell her. I wanted her to keep having a way to reach out to her mom."

Nizam still messages her father through platforms like Facebook. She's still grieving but has also learned to be a little kinder to herself.

"A lot of people, after losing a loved one, wish they were there for them more often; they wish they can redo some things and blame themselves for a lot of things that might have happened," she said. "

But death is not in our hands, and we should just embrace the memories we were left with. People rush to get rid of grief because they see it as hanging onto a loss. Grief is really holding onto love, which is why you always feel it."