Losing my dad my freshman year of college

I’m going to kind of start at the very beginning. I found out that my dad was sick like a week or two after I started at Minerva. It was right away. And I think I was about a month into our first year that his diagnosis was announced: Terminal. Stage four. Pancreatic. There’s no cure.

I asked myself what does that mean? What does that look like? And processing all of that was really hard. Of course, when you’re processing everything and you’re thinking about it all so much and like feeling all the range of emotions that come with it, whether it be anger or sadness, you just don’t want to focus on schoolwork at all. 

That was one of the most challenging things. Throughout the rest of the year, I had to figure out how to focus and get the things done that I needed to get done. Because I still wanted to keep up with school. I’d become really close with people already. And I didn’t want to take a leave of absence and then come back and start over again. Figuring out that balance of being in the Minerva community, exploring the city, and having fun with spending time with my parents and with my dad, since they stayed in San Francisco that whole year.

When he did chemotherapy in San Francisco. That was very challenging. But I think the second, most difficult thing was just feeling really alone and isolated. I didn’t want to, be a burden to other people. And I definitely felt like I was. Like I was too much and I had too much going on for other people to handle. I had a lot of friendship shifts in that first year. For whatever reason, but you take that kind of hard and take it to heart when like you have all this stuff going on. You’re just like, well, what did I do wrong? What’s wrong with me? 

My emotions changed a lot as time went on and I definitely went through different stages and phases of accepting it or not. When I felt angry, I think most of all, I thought, “Of all the people in the world, my dad was the person that did not deserve this. He was just… I don’t think anyone could say something bad about him. Besides the typical annoying things, like he would annoy my mom because that’s what husbands and wives do. But people couldn’t actually say anything bad about him. I was really angry about that, most of all. 

And then I was partially angry that it was happening to me. Why is everything bad happening to me? These are supposed to be the best times of my life. I’m finally in recovery from my eating disorder and supposed to be like going off and doing fun things, meeting new people, exploring. That was frustrating. 

But I experienced more grief in the nine to ten months leading up to when he died more than after he died, just because I knew it was coming. I definitely started feeling that loss before it even happened. I cried a lot. And it was hard seeing like everyone in my family go through it and seeing their ranges of emotions too. Sometimes I would get frustrated when I felt something. And then I would start crying and then my mom was crying and then I felt like I couldn’t cry anymore because she was crying now. 

To cope I had a lot of distractions. I stayed busy and I opened up to friends when I could, or when they would ask. And because that’s always been really important for me and just to process things and I definitely needed those friendships. It was a lot easier when my parents moved into the city, so it took 15, 20 minutes to get there, and then I would spend more time there, and take classes with them. My coping mechanism was just making the most of time, both my own time and my time in San Francisco and my first year at Minerva, but then also my time with my dad. I said everything that I needed to say since we had that time to do that. I just didn’t want to hold back and have regrets with him.

It’s been two and a half years now. I’m not like a constant hurt or pain. Most of the time I would say it doesn’t hurt anymore and it’s not painful. Every now and then something kind of catches me or I just feel sad. I miss him and I want to talk to him. His passing has affected how I want to live my life. Knowing that there’s a lot of uncertainty and a lot of things can happen and you kind of have to roll with it and try to have no regrets along the way. I try not to hold back. In my relationships, both friendships, family, and romantic relationships, it has been just really important to me to be, try and be the bolder person.

And I realized that in this past year, I feel like there’s been a lot of judgment around people or actions, like whether someone wears a mask or not, or. We just judge people not to be mean, or not that you like even realize you’re judging someone always, but just to assume why they’re doing something. So I just find myself taking a step back more saying like, well, you don’t know, like if they have a skin condition that prevents them from wearing a mask, or if they have something going on in their life, or if there’s another reason. I try to have empathy for people and I try to give people the benefit of the doubt because sometimes, we don’t see those things or we don’t know what someone’s going through.

If you are going through a similar situation, perhaps a COVID loss or whatever it is, if you have the time where you see it coming or definitely take that chance and the opportunity to say those things or to do those things that you don’t want to regret. 

Sometimes, you have no idea what is coming. Something things just happen all of a sudden. Shit happens and life is uncertain in every regard. And so I think it’s just a good reminder, to say or do those things. Even if it’s just saying I love you to someone when they walk out the door.

If someone close to you has a terminal illness or sick, just try being there. I think this is probably just the best, most important thing you could do because it shows them you care. Either helping lift their spirits or letting them be down and be upset or angry. Just like having that safe space for whatever emotion.

With my dad, we tried to do a lot of our normal things. I would play a lot of card games and we’d watch shows together and he’d give me foot rubs while we watched. Those moments were important to me because that was the last time I got to do those things with him. So try to enjoy those little moments, even if they seem insignificant.