It's been three years since I lost my dad

i lost my dad three years ago to cancer when i was sixteen. i am now nineteen and to say life without him has gotten easier would be a lie, i feel like its been so so hard and i have no one to talk to about this so i am turning to this forum.

i was so close to my dad, he was my best friend and he was taken so soon. he was diagnosed when i was 14 and it did not truly hit me he had cancer until his life was on the line. i somewhat accepted he had this illness but loosing him was completely out of my mind. i mean you only hear that happen to other people, you only hear that happen on tv. loosing my dad? impossible. i was such a niave child and i wish i wasnt because the shock of loosing him has stayed with me this long.

i miss my dad so much. he was getting better, he really was. he just declined so quickly without me even processing anything and it all just happened so quick. his last breath, his funeral, the bereavement journey. everyone around me thinks i have moved on because i dont want anyone to think i am struggling but each year it gets harder and harder and harder. i feel the emptiness and i feel his print on my family slowly erasing. my family members have relatively moved on and i wonder how? how can someone forget another person who meant the world to him.

i feel like life just went downhill after loosing him. i had a really bad experience in school, i had no support from my college and i cant ask for help at uni. i hate attending uni because i feel the emptiness everywhere i go. my dad was the one who put a smile on my face. we were like two peas in a pod and loosing him i felt like something inside me died. sometimes i WISH i could forget it all, i wish i could forget loosing him. but i cant. this feeling has been strengthened after i lost my aunt to cancer who was like a mother figure to me. i attached myself to her after my dad died. she was my support and when i lost her i felt the feelings come back again. i was feeling happy finally and then she died... how is that fair?

i am struggling to cope with any of this and i just wish there was someone in my life who understood my feelings without undermining me or getting angry at me. my dad and aunt were my happiness and after i lost them both i wish i was with them. i wish they never left me behind. 

  • Hi there,

    I'm so sorry for your loss. I can't imagine how you are feeling. My lovely mum is waiting for colonoscopy results for suspected colon cancer. It has come completely out of the blue, and I am terrified. Like you with your dad, we are so close, and I can't imagine living without her. The thought is more than I can bear, but I know at some time I will have to deal with it.

    I know you think other family members have moved on, but they more than likely haven't, and are just dealing with it in the only way they know how to, and they are hurting too.

    the one thing I do know for certain is that your dad would want you to live life to the full. He would want you to be enjoying living and not being upset because he is no longer there in person. Could you do one thing each day that you enjoy - perhaps something that you and your dad shared an interest in. Do it for him to make him proud, every time you do something you enjoy, do it in his honour, and know he will be there with you in your heart, feeling so proud of you. His memory will always live on in you.

    always here if you need to vent or chat. You are not alone in this.

    much love x

  • Hi,

    This is my first time posting here but your story resonates with me. I lost my Dad 6 years ago when I was 15, and I am still coming to terms with the extent of my loss now at 21. My Dad was diagnosed when I was 14 and was okay for 6 months and then rapidly declined in hospital for his last 6 months. I recieved no support at school and have only recently been able to talk about him with a couple of close friends at uni. 

    I find uni makes me sad sometimes as I realise that he never got to see me here and I would love to show him my life now. Over time it has gotten easier to cope, but the pain is still there and every step I take is a bitter sweet reminder that he is not here with me.  

    It is difficult to find people our age who understand the loss and I'm still not comfortable asking my peers for support. But I also get that it is an impossible thing to imagine until you have gone through it yourself. 

    I just want to say that you are not alone in this and uni is a strange time when you are going through something like this. I am here if you ever want to talk. x

  • Bless you

    I have no words because as each day goes by I can't breathe. I lost my beautiful mom Thursday 13th May 2021she passed in my arms. She suffered so much from terminal cancer, I would have given anything for it to have been me xx Everday I feel I can't breathe but I know she's here with me x

    Death is nothing at all

    I have only slipped away into the next room

    I am I and you are you

    Whatever we were to each other

    That we are still