I’m thinking about starting a club called “Sad Girls with Dead Dads.”

There is a letter on my desk with paperwork I have already done—that, collectively, my siblings and I have done three times at this point—from the insurance company responsible for my deceased father’s retirement fund. I have already filled out this paperwork, but they want it again. My mother won’t call them and charged me with handling everything, as has kind of been the case since the night my dad died: I opened the door to the policemen, I determined whether or not the organ bank could take what they needed from my father’s remains, and I was responsible for paying Taunton District Court the fee necessary to gain access to my father’s estate. I need to call the insurance company (again) and tell them that they have this paperwork already, and ask why they insist on being so difficult. I know, I know, it’s awful that they have to pay out a grieving family that lost someone who played a major part of making the total family income. Absolutely terrible for them, isn't it?

Over the spring break, my friend has to deal with similar insurance issues, has to deal with family and friends and acting in place of her father. We’re a lot alike in that we’re both twins and we’ve both taken more after our fathers than our mothers. We’re both sad and trying to beat back depression and grief. I haven’t had the long conversations we’ve had with each other with her twin sister yet, but I assume it’s probably not too different. I don’t like to talk about my grief very often, but when I do, it’s usually with people who know what I’m going through.

There’s honestly nothing worse than having to deal with paperwork after someone dies. Actually, no—there’s a tossup between paperwork and having to pay funeral bills. (I wonder what it’s like to profit off the grief of others. Probably lucrative, given how many people die on a daily basis, and the percentage of those people who have families willing to give them a nice final farewell.) You’re anxious enough as it is, and then you’re told, “By the way, we have to do X, Y, and Z.” Not only that, but the powers that be make completing X, Y, and Z nearly impossible, and by the time you do have access to someone’s life insurance or retirement fund or whatever it is, well, the money that should have been able to help support you has either been used for lawyers or has dried up.

Almost a year after my dad died, I was reminded that I should probably let Sallie Mae/Navient (they go by different names, but I’m pretty sure they’re the same company regardless of whatever was “sold” or “bought.” Name changes are essential when committing fraud) know that my cosigner was gone since they kept sending him mail. Their immediate response was not, “We’re so sorry for your loss, and since you don’t have a cosigner anymore and are obviously going through severe emotional trauma, we should probably forgive your loan,” but instead, “We need the death certificate (not a copy, but the actual one), and by the way, pay your loan in full.” Fat chance; I haven’t sent them a death certificate and as of right now I’m still making payments as was planned, so nothing seems to have happened to me, but I think their reaction is a pretty apt summary of life when you lose a loved one: Companies don’t care. People will spend a second to acknowledge your grief, but it doesn’t really matter to them that your dad is dead. As far as I can tell, the only people who will really give you a break are, most likely, people who also have dead parents.

Which is why I think I should start a club. I don’t want to call it a support group, because that reminds me too much of the therapist I left or any Substance-Abuse Anonymous, and while those might be necessary depending on where you are in life, it wouldn’t be so much a group as much as an acknowledgement of a major shared life experience. I don’t want to have weekly meetings where I go and talk about my Dead Dad™, but I do want to know that there are other people going through the same red tape and the same bad brain stuff that I am.

In the “Sad Girls with Dead Dads” club, when things start eating at you again, you’d make a call to the nearest member or a text. You don’t have to talk about your Dead Dad, but you should make sure you’re not alone—whether that means talking over the phone or going out to get food. Try not to do anything that involves drinking, because as much as alcohol seems to help soothe emotional distress and pain, in the end you always wind up feeling worse off than when you started. After making the call, you do something to quickly de-stress: Club Rules suggest deep breathing, but if you’re worried you’re going to hyperventilate so hard you pass out, maybe try sitting in the “Downward Facing Dog” yoga pose and easing up into “Upward Facing Dog.” Remember that the one thing your Dead Dad wouldn’t want you to be is sad, and figure out something that will make you feel better with the other members of your chapter of the “Sad Girls with Dead Dads” club.

Maybe you will need to talk about it, and maybe you will need to cry, but remember that crying is a good thing, because at least it means you’re feeling something rather than the numbness that sometimes comes with loss. Crying is a purging act; crying can make you feel new again, like a stressed out baby with a major migraine: young, afraid, hurt, but aware of yourself.