Never Have I Ever seen a show depict teenage grief so accurately

Image: Courtesy of Netflix

The struggle is real… when you’re the sad girl whose dad died

Season 4 of Mindy Kaling’s hit Netflix teen comedy Never Have I Ever hit our screens today, for the final time. Over the last four seasons we have watched high schooler Devi navigate crushes, hookups, friendships and studies as she makes her way towards graduation and the ending of the show. Never Have I Ever is funny, outlandish, and oozes with Kaling’s notorious wit and charm.

But as a 29-year-old, the thing that resonates with me most about the show is the unbelievably accurate depiction of what it’s like to lose a parent when you’re a teenager. I love Mindy Kaling’s writing and watch everything she creates with awe, but I wasn’t expecting this teen comedy to be so poignant and relevant to the hardest time of my life. I can’t remember seeing a depiction of teenage grief in such a fresh and realistic way on the screen before.

Never Have I Ever centres around 15-year-old Devi, who suffers a traumatic loss when her dad passes away in front of her at her orchestra concert from a sudden heart attack. I lost my own dad aged 19, while in my second year of university, from unexpected heart failure. Although our circumstances and lives are different (and yes, I know Devi is fictional), with she being still in high school and the show depicting navigating grief in a South Asian family, the show still resonated with me deeply.

Losing a parent at any age is hard enough, but losing a parent when you’re in the throes of your teenage years, already being barraged by hormones and angst and so many decisions to make, it honestly feels even worse. It’s a time when everything is changing and you are doing many things for the first time; graduating, leaving home, getting a job, having sex. When you have all of that going on, you don’t need a dead dad thrown into the mix to impact the trajectory of your life even more.  

Devi is trying to fully experience high school, but with the constant reminders of her dad plaguing her to the point where she temporarily loses feeling in her legs as a response to her trauma. While my response was not so extreme, getting out of bed each day was like climbing a mountain as I was trying to navigate being away from home, making new friends, getting a boyfriend, and passing my degree. 

We both experienced dreams about our father, where he is alive, and woke up feeling distraught at the reminder of reality. Devi’s most treasured item is a voicemail her dad left on her phone, which she listens to for comfort in times of need. When my dad first passed away I would call his number again and again to hear his voice on his answer phone message, until the dreaded day his number went out of service.

Some watching the show might think that Devi doesn’t handle her situation that well, as she focuses all of her attention on becoming popular and getting a boyfriend instead of leaning into her grief. But it’s also apparent that a lot of this is to distract from the loss of her father and give her another purpose to focus on, and my experience was the same in a lot of ways, selfish as it may seem.

Would getting a popular boyfriend make Devi feel better about her dad? No, but it’s a good distraction and it makes her feel normal at a time when she is experiencing something a lot of her peers haven't. If you haven’t experienced that specific kind of grief at that age, it can be hard to relate to. This show made me feel seen in a way that I didn’t at the time. At that time I felt pathetic, and a mess, and sad.

Grief can be so sporadic; one moment you are crying in your room and next having the booty call of your dreams - this happens on the show and in real life. For me, my night went from sobbing into a box of my dad’s old things to answering the door to my university crush on his way home from a party. As far as first hook-ups go with someone you really like, having puffy eyes from weeping over your dad’s aftershave isn’t ideal, but for me it was the highly anticipated equivalent of Paxton coming in through the window with Heatwaves by Glass Animals playing in the background.

I wish there were more examples of this grief in the media; the messy grief that isn’t linear, grief that cripples you one day and ebbs away the next, where you can laugh, achieve, and live all while in the face of death, before not being able to get out of bed when you suddenly thought you were happy again. Never Have I Ever shows that you are allowed to feel joyous about things, and you are also allowed to feel heartbroken about other things too, which might not seem as big in comparison, but you don’t just stop feeling completely. You’re allowed to be upset that that guy didn’t want you to be his girlfriend even after your Heatwaves moment.

A touching moment comes in Season 3, Episode 8, when Devi tells her therapist that she was having so much fun and focusing on her boyfriend that she ‘forgot to be the sad girl whose dad died’.

Devi does a lot of crazy things and is not always the most thoughtful or likeable person, but I think that’s very realistic for someone who is navigating what she is. Maybe I got too drunk, cried too much, and chased boys more than I should have at that time.

But honestly, I think a lot of us would do anything to forget that we are the sad girl whose dad died.

Even 10 years on from my dad’s passing, Never Have I Ever still touches me deeply. At the end of the first season, there is a poignant moment where Devi, her mom and her cousin spread her dad’s ashes on the beach. My brother and I are planning a trip to Glasgow later this year to spread the remainder of my dad’s ashes for his 10th anniversary.

While it might not be the perfect on-screen moment, it is a fitting end to an episode of my life.

Written by Ally McLaren
Editor

Hi, I’m Ally, Editor of This Modern Struggle Magazine.

You may have seen my writing in Mouthy Magazine or Darling Magazine. I currently work in Marketing and PR and do freelance copywriting on the side. I also have experience in journalism and feature writing for women’s magazines and national press.

When I’m not writing you can find me eating pizza, stroking my cat and watching true crime documentaries.

I started this magazine for all the fellow strugglers who feel the same way that I do; like everyone else has it all figured out and you just don’t know what you’re doing in life.