A girl whose mom died when she was eight years old opened up to her dad about their daughter-father relationship, and his reaction hasn't gone down well online.

Losing a parent is one of the toughest things that anyone will ever go through, and it also means that somebody has lost their soul mate.

In these times of hardship, the remaining parent and their child should come together and support each other - or so you'd hope.

One woman has taken to Reddit where she has opened up about losing her mother at eight years old, and the impact this had on her relationship with her dad.

Taking to the Am I The A**hole forum, she wrote: "I was 8 when I lost my mom and we were as close as ever but I needed him more. Then when I was 11 he remarried and he became a stepdad to a girl who was 10 at the time. Now, this is where full honesty comes in. I was jealous as hell that my dad was trying to bond with her and that he called her his daughter and us 'his girls' right away."

The Redditor was very candid about her jealousy, noting that she "felt sick" whenever her dad spent time with his stepdaughter, but she noticed that he would eventually start spending more time with his new family than with her.

She recounted an incident where she overheard him speaking: "I was 13 my dad said how much he preferred hanging out with her over me because they had similar interests. He said he couldn't spend enough time with his stepdaughter and he was hoping I would hit the teen phase of not wanting my parents around me that much."

She continued: "Then he admitted he also resented me for not wanting his wife the way her daughter wanted him. He wanted us to be the perfect little family and we looked like a stepfamily where the step is always used because I didn't really want his wife for stuff."

She gave her dad his space and he didn't seem to mind, but when his stepdaughter turned 16 and wanted her own space, he appeared to be crushed by it.

Years later her dad approached her about why she didn't call him to help her move into her new place, and she revealed everything from her jealousy to what he had overheard him saying.

She notes that he seemed "offended" by what she had said and that he said she was "disgusting" for wanting him to not spend time with his stepdaughter.

She concluded: "He also told me he should be allowed to have interests in common with someone other than me. I told him he was. But I was also a kid who lost my mom and clung to my sole living parent.

"He then accused me of manipulating him by saying all that and I told him that he shouldn't have asked a question if he wasn't prepared for an honest answer. He told me I could f*** right off with that attitude and told me to grow up."

People in the comments were not happy with the dad, as one person wrote: "Unfortunately your dad will never understand your side of things. It’s best to walk away to avoid your heart being broken over and over."

A second said: "He clearly didn’t provide you with enough love and reassurance and just expected you to accept them. I could see his position partially up until the point where you share your recent call with him and he just denied it and accuse you of manipulation. He clearly failed to provide enough stability, reassurance and emotional empathy to you."

A third concluded: "Now that you are no longer close, he wants to whine to you about how hurt his feelings are, but he still wants to take zero accountability for his failures as a father. He needs to grow up himself."

What are your thoughts?

Featured image credit: Francesco Carta fotografo/Getty

A woman captured a final photo of her three-year-old granddaughter moments before she tragically died.

Samantha Jensen’s daughter, Scarlett, was out picking flowers with her two-year-old brother Henry and their grandmother, Jamie, when tragedy struck in 2022.

Jensen's daughter tragically passed away. Credit: Mykola Romanovskyy / Getty

Now, two years later, Samantha has found the strength to share the last picture of her little girl alive.

In a gut-wrenching TikTok post, Samantha wrote: “My mom took this picture at 4:47PM and my daughter's time of death was 4:52. My mom didn't know she was capturing the last moments of her life.

“I looked at the timestamp and realized it was only five minutes before her declared time of death, so it must have been taken seconds before the person hit them. This one is really hard for me to look at, just knowing what comes next breaks my heart.”

That sunny afternoon, Jamie had just returned from treating the kids to ice cream when Scarlett asked to hop out of her stroller to pick yellow and purple flowers in the driveway of their private property.

That’s when Jamie snapped what would become a painfully significant photo.

"That's when my mom took the last picture I have of her alive."

But what should have been a peaceful, joyful moment turned into unimaginable chaos. A Chevy Tahoe came speeding down the dirt road, hitting Scarlett, Henry, and Jamie before anyone could get out of the way.

Credit: Samantha Jensen / TikTok

Jamie screamed for the driver to stop and tried desperately to push her grandchildren to safety. But the SUV was moving “too fast.”

“Scarlett was killed almost instantly and my mom and Henry were critically injured,” Samantha told People.

Jamie lost her phone in the collision. Weeks later, once it was found, Samantha discovered the image that captured Scarlett’s final moments.

“My mom lost her phone when they were hit, and it took us a while to find it, so when we finally did, I was going through the pictures and found that one.”

Looking at it was "excruciating" at first.

“It was extremely painful for me to look at in the beginning. How do you come to terms with the existence of a 'last picture' of your child?”

But in time, the image became a source of solace. She eventually shared it on TikTok, where strangers flooded the comments with love and support.

“I am so incredibly thankful to have that photo. It captures the peaceful feeling of her last moments, the beauty she was surrounded by when she took her last breaths,” Samantha said.

“I will forever picture her happy and carefree, picking flowers with her best friend and Meemaw.”

Following the crash, Henry was airlifted to a children’s hospital where doctors found extensive injuries.

“They found a fractured spine, six broken ribs, a broken jaw, a broken collarbone, a liver laceration and several other injuries,” Samantha recalled.

The toddler “spent a week in the PICU before he was stable enough to come home, and he had a full body brace on for 10 weeks.”

Incredibly, both Henry and Jamie survived and recovered from their physical injuries. But the emotional trauma still lingers.

Scarlett, born on New Year’s Day in 2019, was “the long-awaited first child” of Samantha and her husband.

Her grandfather, Jim Patton, remembered her as “so full of life, so full of love… such a smart little girl.” He added: “A piece of my soul is gone.”

Samantha described Scarlett as “the silliest, sweetest little girl.”

“She loved horses, unicorns, being a big sister, and the movies Frozen and Spirit. The absolute joy of her life were her siblings. She loved helping take care of baby Molly and playing with her best friend Henry.”

Without her, “the house feels so quiet and empty.”

The man behind the wheel of the Chevy Tahoe initially fled the scene on foot. He was apprehended a few miles away and is now serving a ten-year prison sentence. Samantha noted that he received two years' credit for time served during the legal proceedings.

Her father, still stunned, asked: “How do you do that? How do you walk away from suffering?”

Some days, the pain is unbearable for Samantha.

“Some days, it feels like I am drowning, and some days I am able to tread water.”

She now shares her story publicly, determined to help others navigate grief without shame.

“You don't have to do it in silence. Talk about your people, scream their names loud and proud, and never stop sharing their stories.”

Featured image credit: lightkey / Getty

If there's one thing the people of social media love - apart from a heated debate, celebrity gossip, politician scandals, and cat videos - it's a good optical illusion.

Now, one parent has left Reddit users scratching their heads after posting a snap of their daughter "sinking into the ground".

Taking to the social media platform to share the eyebrow-raising photo, Reddit user MK24ever left people at odds with what they were seeing thanks to an incredibly timed image of their daughter walking outside.

They posted the baffling photo along with the caption: "My daughter, where's the rest of her?? Ohh I see, do you?" Take a look at the pic in question below:

The picture features a young girl playing on what appears to be a driveway... but the bottom half of her body appears to be completely missing - as if she has sunken into the solid ground.

The confusing snap did not go unnoticed as it already received more than 80,000 upvotes at the time of writing.

Reacting to the baffling snap, one Reddit user simply wrote: "That's a good one."

A second commented explaining that the caption made the illusion all the more confusing, writing: "Part of the reason it's so good is that the title implies that there's a 'rest of her' to be seen, so we're not expecting half of her body to be completely concealed, we're expecting her to blend in."

A fourth Reddit user reacted to the picture with a simple "WTF" before a fifth suggested that the optical illusion is created by the young girl being behind a wall.

Meanwhile, a fifth Reddit user admitted that they had to come to the comments section to work out exactly what was going on in the picture.

Another baffled social media user wrote: "Everyone who saw it just keeps saying 'there's a wall' instead of saying that the entire foreground is like an elevated plateau and she is standing behind it. I kept looking for a wall between the grass and the girl and it was melting my brain."

Another Reddit user went on to explain that the camera angle is also playing a role in creating the illusion.

However, not everyone on the social media website believed that it was the result of the girl standing behind a wall, as one person joked: "People are saying there is a wall she is standing behind but I don't see it. I think this poor kid is trapped in some kind of Manhattan project accident."

All of which ultimately begs the question, what do you think is going on in this optical illusion? Let us know in the comments.

Featured image credit: Sean Anthony Eddy / Getty

Thankfully, in my short time on this planet, I haven't had to deal with much grief and upset. However, some people have, and they channel their emotions through different means and avenues. For some, if they're sad after the death of a loved one, they will disappear for a while and take time out to reflect and enjoy some time alone. For others, however, they find comfort in the company of other people - even if it's online.

Take social media, for example. Often, when a loved one passes away, we see people take to their Facebook or Instagram to post a heartfelt and emotional tribute to that person. Whether it's a grandma, brother, or even a dog - the poster takes heart in the responses of well-wishers and tributes alike.

However, while pictures of holding hands or nostalgic childhood photos are commonplace in these tributes, actual photos of dead bodies are not... and for good reason.

Let's face it, when we log onto Instagram or Facebook, we're either there to stalk to lives of people from school, or to look at aesthetically pleasing things like sneakers, house plants and amazing holiday destinations. But, one Serbian model had other ideas.

Jelica Ljubicic, a singer and model from Serbia, posted a picture on her Instagram story where she can be seen posing for the camera while her father lays dead behind her.

Jelica's dad's head had fallen to one side, with local media reporting that he had died shortly before the picture was taken.

Understandably, Jelica received a huge backlash from followers who were baffled by the upload. However, before deleting the image - and her account - Jelica had issued a heartfelt tribute to her father.

Ljubicic wrote in the caption:

"We have fought as much as we can, but it is not our will. We don't decide how long we will live. He left us in the 67th year of life. Thank you for everything, I am grateful for being your daughter, and having you as my father.

"Thank you for bringing us to the right path. Rest in peace, you will always stay in our hearts."

Despite her heartfelt message, people were left creeped out by the photo and took to Jelica's profile to publicly criticise the image.

Rile commented: "This is how much she cares for her father she has the time and strength to take photos."

And Magdalena added: "Only a sick person can do this."

Nada wrote: "I can’t believe what am I reading and seeing. No, there is no hope for this world."

As mentioned, Jelica has now removed both the image and her profile from the internet as a result of the backlash.

While her intentions may have been to simply issue a heartfelt message to her late father, Jelica's choice of pose in front of his dead body was always going to garner a lot of attention and criticism.

A daughter was in tears after she discovered that her mother was left alone on her birthday after none of her 40+ guests turned up to the party.

Turning to the video-sharing app, daughter Addie - who goes by the handle @addieraej - shared a video showing how upset she was over the ordeal.

In the overlay text of the TikTok clip, Addie wrote: "My mom threw herself a birthday party and invited over 40 people. It's 5pm, no one showed up and it started at 4pm, I'm crying."

The young girl also revealed in the caption that her mom "made food" and "cleaned the whole house," for her guests, however, no one bothered to show up to celebrate her special day.

The video rocketed into internet stardom, having amassed a jaw-dropping 17.6 million views and 2.9 million likes on the social media platform.

Many online users rushed to the comments to express their sadness regarding the situation and several wished the unhappy mother a very happy birthday.

One user wrote: "I WISH HER THE BESTEST BIRTHDAY EVERR"

Another commented: "That’s like your dad waiting to watch a movie with you and 2 hours later he’s asleep on the couch when you’re finally ready. :,("

A third said: "Maybe the birthday gift for her is finally the realization that she needs better people in her life who actually love spending time with her."

A fourth shared: "I never celebrate my birthday for this exact reason."

One user asked the daughter if her mom "put the wrong date" down because "there’s no way 40 people wouldn’t show up," to which Addie replied: "She definitely put the right date:/ only 6 people responded to her [Facebook] group invitation and not even they showed."

Undoubtedly, the most surprising message under a follow-up video of Addie and her sister singing happy birthday to their mom was from Noah Schnapp who stars in the hit series Stranger Things.

The Netflix actor wrote: "I would be there! Happy birthday" with two heart emojis. The daughter then responded: "No way you saw this omg thank you."

The heartwarming video garnered 4.6 million views and 655.9K likes on the platform and the TikToker wrote beside the post: "Even though it was just me and my sisters to sing to her, thank you to everyone who was showing her love."

She also added in another update video that her mother is "happy" and is grateful for all the lovely comments.

Let's hope people can come together to give Addie's mom the birthday celebrations she deserves!

Featured image credit: Gregg Vignal / Alamy