When the storyteller becomes the story
I am not the first person to lose a child. The only thing different about my story is that it was my daughter who was the professional storyteller. From 2022 to 2024, she was an associate editor for Lifestyle Inquirer. When she moved to Australia to pursue a master’s degree, she continued contributing articles for Inquirer. That is, until her death one year ago today.
I knew that in the early days after her passing, many would remember P (whom I fondly call Sophia, aside from “Pia,” “Kid,” “Kiddo,” or “Anak”). But I was too caught up in the throes of my grief to truly hear their stories. Besides, I was used to anecdotes. With social media dominating everyone’s life, most of us are.
Small incidents where someone did something with heroic flair—or how another person earned the world’s praise—all captured in 30-second clips and shared with anyone who has a few seconds to spare.
I am a Gen Xer. I grew up in a world without the internet, where people used a rotary phone, slammed the TV to get static out, and used card catalogues and encyclopaedias to do homework. I come from a generation that didn’t just know how to play the long game—we lived it.
And while I am not above appreciating the occasional short story, when it came to my kid, I was keener to hear about the ones that lasted long after her last quip to them was recalled with a tear and a sigh.
They say when you lose a child, you lose them many times in many ways. When someone older passes away—a parent, a grandparent, a respected mentor—we typically look backward. To the person we knew them to be. To the life they already lived.
When one loses a child, you don’t just grieve their loss. You grieve a future they can no longer have. Dreams they can no longer fulfil. Years ahead you thought you would still have with them. Losing a child is to have grief surround you from the past, present, and future.
It’s no small wonder, then, that I agonized over whether my kid even had a chance to really live. And have a life that meant something. She was 25 years old, after all—even I was older than her by eight months when I delivered her. And when you’re that young, what legacy could you possibly leave?
But then the messages started trickling in. Not about how people felt about Sophia, but how Sophia made them feel. Alex (not her real name) regularly messages me, typically starting with: “Titaaaaa, I miss Soph so much!” She started messaging me in the early weeks, telling me about how Sophia managed to convince her to go back to Inquirer. I already knew that.
Beyond the professional, Sophia was a storyteller about her own life. Even when she was abroad, not a day went by that we would not message each other about how things were going. And now that she was gone, apparently, I was not the only one wondering how to move forward when someone who made them feel so much about themselves was no longer around.
Nowadays, Alex sends me short messages, telling me about how the name of the nurse when she was scared of delivering her baby was Pia, and how that made her feel just a bit braver. How she would think about Sophia’s work ethic when things got overwhelming, and that it would make her soldier on.
The same goes for Hailey (also not her real name), who was befriended by Sophia while waiting in line at the P2P, and ended up recruiting her for Inquirer as well. Hailey designed the A las Siesta logo back when they were both in college. A las Siesta was Sophia’s brief foray into entrepreneurship, when she created her own capsule clothing collection.
Every so often, Hailey still messages me, once even telling me about a butterfly she saw after yoga class, hovering on the other side of the window where she sat. She had just suffered a heartbreak and mused that the butterfly must have been sent by Sophia to remind her to hang in there. Just like she used to encourage her when she was still alive.
It wasn’t just people she had worked with, though. People she grew up with had their own accounts of how Sophia made them feel. Words she would say that would carry them through and make them get past another tough week. “Laban” (“fight”) is such a simple word. But to one of her friends, it became a tether that kept him many times from falling into deep depression.
Cam was one of Sophia’s high school friends. He would message practically every day in the first few months after Sophia’s passing, just to check in. We never said two words to each other before. I pointed this out to him and told him he shouldn’t feel obligated to check up on me. But then he said, “Tita, every time I would be demotivated or discouraged, Pia would say ‘Laban!’ And she would be so convincing (and sometimes so annoying) I had to put one foot in front of the other just to shut her up. I think she would want me to say that to you now. Every day until you can say it to yourself and find a reason to keep going: Laban.”
And then there was Phil. Sophia’s partner. He was completely shattered by Sophia’s untimely passing. On Sophia’s nameplate in the columbarium, right under her name and dates of birth and death, is a quote: “I love you the most.” The full line she would say to him, though, was: “I love you the most, vegemite and toast.” It was one of those terms of endearment that didn’t really make much sense except to the two of them.
After Sophia passed, he talked about all the ways Sophia held him up and made him feel seen. “She was my person, Tita. The first one I wanted to see in the morning, and the last I wanted to see at night. The first person I would think of when something happened, and the one I would look for when I needed to get my head on straight. She was the one.”
To be the first thought on someone’s mind when one wakes in the morning. Or the person who pops into one’s head when they’re lonely or afraid. Isn’t that all we really yearn for in this life?
It has been a year of contradictions. Of holding pride alongside pain. Of enduring what felt like days that would never end, and nights when sleep felt so brief I would still wake up tired.
I am a different person now. As are all the people who knew Sophia. Forever changed by the life she lived and the loss none of us could have imagined would affect us so deeply. We are different mothers, brothers, and friends. And her colleagues at Inquirer? They are different storytellers, too.
In the early days, my biggest fear was that Sophia would die before she could even really live. But one year in, I find that she didn’t just live, she endures.
My storyteller has become a story. And her legacy lies not in the many things she achieved or even in the stories she wrote. Her legacy is in the lives of the people who will never be the same because they knew her, and the stories they will now share in a different way because there was a time in their lives when they knew and loved a funny, headstrong, quirky, happy, creative, determined, and sunshiny girl named Sophia.
In the Netflix series “The Sandman,” the character Death picks up a lawyer who was allowed to live for 12,000 years because he was friends with another otherworldly being. When he suddenly passes away in an accident, he asks Death how it can all just end so abruptly. Then he adds: “I did alright though, didn’t I? I mean, I got what? 12,000 years. That’s pretty good, isn’t it?”
And Death replies: “You got what everybody gets, Bernie. A lifetime. No more, no less. You got a lifetime.”
Reader, maybe you never knew my Sophia. But if you got this far, that probably means there was something in this story that resonated with you. A lifetime is all each of us ever gets. And whether it’s 25 years or 25,000, if there is one thing I hope you take away from reading this, I hope it’s an understanding of how powerful showing up for each other can be.
My Sophia, my storyteller, is now part of the story of the universe. And as Alex, Hailey, Phil, Cam, and others will attest, she wrote herself a pretty good chapter. I hope you look up from reading this and do the same.
January 12, 2026 marks Sophia’s first anniversary since her passing. She is lovingly remembered by her mother Teri, her partner, and the Lifestyle.INQ team
