The grief of losing a loved one

On losing my dad, living with grief, and the regrets I still have.

The last time I really cried was when my father passed away. In June of 2023, he finally lost a three-year battle with lung cancer.

The years leading up to his death were challenging, but we all had hope that his treatments would keep him relatively happy and healthy. He was on a medication that would keep the cancer at bay, and he knew a guy who had been on it for thirteen years. He called it his Lazarus pill because it could bring folks back from the dead.

We were hopeful that he would be around for a long while.

However, this treatment stops working for most people after about a year. The body gets used to it, or the cancer gets too aggressive. For him, it worked for about three years before the side effects of having cancer were too much for him to handle.

Ten days before he died, I got a call from my mom that he'd been admitted to Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, CA. Despite how sick he was, he was never hospitalized overnight until that day. Something with his pancreas wasn't right.

I was in Montreal with my girlfriend then, and we were looking forward to our summer of love. We'd met over Christmas break while I was in San Francisco visiting my family. We were doing the long-distance thing and had been looking forward to spending the summer in Montreal together.

But I got the call, took the first flight out, and drove straight to the hospital. Every day, after spending the day with my dad, I'd drive my mom home, and we would talk. One day, she said, "I don't think your father is coming home."

And she was right. He died a few days later.

And my life changed.

After a few shell-shocked days with my mom and brother, I returned to Montreal to be with my girlfriend and dog. And I cried.

I spent days in bed, unable to do the smallest tasks.

I pushed everyone away, including my girlfriend.