How Femke found joy again in a drawing after the death of her father

Philosophy student Femke de Bruin lost her father the same week she graduated from high school. She dealt with the grief by pushing it away, then turned to anger. Eventually she found joy again through a simple doodle that led to her own clothing brand for people in grief in all forms.

When Femke de Bruin moved to Rotterdam for her studies, she mostly kept busy. She joined a big student house, went to the parties often and made sure there was always something fun happening. Grieving her father, she figured, could wait.

Now 25 years old and finishing her Philosophy thesis, she has turned her darkest days into a clothing brand called The Big Bliss Project. She wants other grieving students to know they are not alone.

Strict but loving father

Femke’s father was quite strict but also the kind of parent who would hide behind doors when he got home from work and jump out to scare his daughters. He coached all three of their hockey teams on weekends. Hard work could get everyone anything, he believed, and he spent his life trying to pass that on to his children.

“What he mostly expected from us was to be the best version of ourselves”, Femke says. “In every situation, you first look at what you can do yourself. What is your responsibility?”, she recalls. He also taught her to analyse her own emotions, something Femke says she is still grateful for.

He got sick when she was 16 and passed away two years later. The relationship in those final years was complicated. “I was a teenager resisting everything he told me to do”, Femke adds. Her father promised he would not die. “I think it was frustrating for him to talk about it with people”, she says. There was no goodbye and no final conversation.

Four nights a week

By the time Femke started studying in Rotterdam, she felt she had done enough grieving. It was almost a year since his death, and she wanted what every other student wanted, a fresh start. “I just wanted to be like everybody else. Careless, free, party, and do a little studying sometimes”, she says.

At the time, it felt normal as her parents talked about student life that way. But looking back, she recognises she was reaching for the easiest exit whenever the sadness surfaced. “Whenever I should have said I need time for myself, I didn’t do that. I’d just go partying because it was easier.”

She did not tell many people what has happened. “I was carrying this backpack full of sadness while everybody was just building their lives”, she says. After two years of struggling, the grief caught up with her and left her unable to get out of bed and study. She packed a bag and stayed for five months at her parents’ house.

‘Grief comes in waves’

Back at her mother’s house, she walked her dog in the forest, watched Game of Thrones, and started getting a lot of professional help. A few years later, after many sessions  with therapists and grief counsellors, a wave of anger arrived that Femke did not expect. Fury at her father for not saying goodbye, and at her mother for not telling how serious his condition was.

“I just felt hate”, she says. “And then I thought: how can I be angry at someone who is gone. There’s no conversation to have”, Femke adds. Even now, seven years later, she would feel heaviness and emptiness and not know why, then check the calendar and see the anniversary approaching. “It’s the day slowly introducing itself”, she says. Grief, she has learned, does not move in stages but in waves.

‘I finally felt joy’

While living with her mother, Femke joined a creativity workshop to fill the time. In one assignment she had to look for something nearby and turn it into something of her own. She spotted a small statue on a shelf and turned it into a small, round drawing figure.

“I felt this tiny part inside me that wanted to smile. I could feel joy again”, she says. When a close friend who supported her along the way had a birthday, she put the drawing on a hoodie and made it for him.

More people started asking for hoodies. The drawing was put onto different items and eventually turned into an actual brand, The Big Bliss, named after the joy the drawing gave her. She now runs the brand with her younger sister who was 14 at the time their father passed away. Around five hundred hoodies have been sold so far. People buy the hoodies for friends who are also grieving. “I receive messages saying that it makes people feel a little safer, a little less alone”, she says.

Be your own friend

Femke is careful about giving advice. Different things work for different people, she says. But she came from a very dark place and there are things she wishes someone had told her earlier.

“Don’t compare yourself to others. Your situation is unique and if others seem to have it figured out, that doesn’t say anything about you”, she says. She also wishes she had asked for professional help sooner rather than waiting until she could no longer get out bed. Her study advisor who told her she could take all the time and space she needed, was the push to fully pause her study for a year and recover. “Universities could sometimes look at the human more than the student number”, she adds.

She does advise this: “Try to interact with yourself the way you would with a friend who told you what you are going through. How would you react to them? React that way to yourself.”