What am I supposed to do after my grandpa’s death?
This is mostly about my actual housing situation but general advice about grief is much appreciated.
I’m gonna have to give a lot of context for this, so bear with me:
So, my grandpa got diagnosed with lung cancer last year and now he will most likely pass in the next few weeks/maybe months.
My grandpa and I are crazy close, he is the person I love most in life. I grew up in foster care and my grandparents were the only ones I consistently had contact to and my grandpa is basically my best friend. I facetime him daily, I visit my grandparents basically every weekend.
Anyways, I graduated this July and went to Spain for an Aupair. To do that, I had to move out of the youth housing situation I lived in. The aupair situation didn’t work out (irrelevant to the story) so I came back two weeks ago. I didn’t take a plane back and instead did Interrail and stayed in hostels. I decided that I want to do backpacking more or less full-time for the next year or two. So, for that reason, I’m not looking for a new apartment.
Right now, I’m staying at my aunt’s place. Her and I have talked and she essentially said I can’t be at her place after he passes because doesn’t want her 12 year old son to see me during my grief.
I don’t want to stay at my grandparents’ place after my grandpa passes because it was always the place where I visited them, never my home, so it will 100% feel like I’m in his apartment and it’ll just suck. Additionally, my grandma is very mentally unstable and I think both of us during grief wouldn’t work out well.
I am basically no contact with my parents, but my mom is a hoarder so her apartment is probably close to a biohazard at this point and my dad is basically homeless.
I could potentially ask my dad’s ex-wife if I could stay with her and my half siblings for a bit, but I’m not super close with them, so it’s kind of weird to live with them during such a hard time.
So, here are the only options that I’m actually considering:
- Staying with my best friend (Cons: lives in the Ukraine (near the Polish boarder but still frequent alarms even if usually nothing happens + her mother is very strict) (Pros: I wouldn’t have to be completely alone)
- Staying in an AirBnb for a few weeks (Cons: pretty expensive + I’d be all alone) (Pros: not in an active warzone + I could stay in the mountains, which makes me happy)
- I immediately go on the backpacking route I planned to do this Fall and return for Christmas like I originally planned when I assumed he had more time (Cons: A lot of new experiences every day and I worry about not being able to process things at all and then everything comes crashing down as soon as I come home + I’d be all alone) (Pros: I feel like that is the easiest option)
I hope you guys understand the situation from this weird text 😭. I started crying twice while writing this and really don’t want to go over this again. If you have any questions or anything is unclear, please ask!
Posted Aug 13, 2026, 8:29 PM UTC