kblain2113's comments

The experience of losing a parent

07 Oct 2008 08:00 PM

I am a 21 year old woman who just lost her father to colon cancer after a two year struggle with the disease. We were so optimistic about him making it and being cured. By September all went pessamistic and we realized that death was eminent. Watching your father or parent deteriorate in front of you and having there be nothing you can do to make it easy is hard. My father was the strongest man I knew and never asked for help, only to give it instead. By the end of his life this cancer had made him weak and needing help with even the littlest simplest tasks we take for granted. He was 65 years old and, although that isn't too young and he had lived a good amount of his life, I wasn't ready. None of us were ready. It's still been very hard to digest and to realize my dad is gone. He won't be here when I make milestones in my life like marriage or more grandchildren. I was lucky enough, out of irresponsiblity as a late teenager, to have given him one grandchild. He got to experience that one last milestone of his life being a grandfather. If anything, my dad having cancer and dying has taught me that there is a reason for everything. There's a reason I had my son and whether or not I can see it right now, there is a reason my dad left us. None the less this is the hardest thing I've ever gone through or anyone can every go through, no matter what age