“Bless my pops, we sent him off and not a hour late/Still in shock and now my heart out somewhere on the range” – Earl Sweatshirt, Peanut

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I was 21 when I lost my dad.

Grieving is often presented as a linear process in the media – the idea of the five stages, people telling you that “it gets better with time”, etc.

As helpful as that type of thinking is in the initial shock of losing someone, it’s not a particularly accurate summation of the long-standing effects of grieving.

While it does become the “new normal” over time, I’ve found that moments continue to affect me in a deeper way than they ever have before. It’s less constant, but it never really leaves you.

You never reach a point of “acceptance”, where it all crystallises into meaning and becomes something you can let go. You move on, and the day to day changes, but it doesn’t feel like it becomes easier.

Even after you accept the loss, there’s a sense of resignation that begins to pervade your thoughts.

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EARL Sweatshirt was 24 when he lost his father, former South African poet laureate Keorapetse Kgositsile, in January 2018.