Hi,
I wanted to take time to write something to firstly say thank you to all who post but especially those who reply. I have taken a lot of comfort finding and reading relevant threads since April this year. That was when my dad, 69 years old, was diagnosed with a highly aggressive, grade 4 brain tumour with no options for treatment other than palliative care at home. 10 weeks later, on Father's Day, my beautiful, loving and adored dad died at home with my mum, my sister and myself (we are both in our late 30s) by his side.
I suppose there are a few things that I want to say and it probably is a post that could result in me making new threads but first and foremost I still feel in denial and can not believe that this has happened to my dad and above everything else in the short amount of time that it has occurred. I've just spent all evening writing down what happened and when to try to formulate and make sense of the timeline. It's very apparent how there is a shift when everything seems to multiply and speed up ten fold, particularly in the last week of life but I don't know why I am still obsessing over this. I do prefer to be in the know and believe that this gives me some sense of control but now I know more than ever how much control we don't have. Other then how we respond to such challenging situations.
Secondly I do want people to know what an absolute privilege that I felt it was to care for and be with my dad in his final weeks and days of life. But I now have this desperate almost yearning for things not to be over. I want to still be there caring for my dad, holding his hand. I don't want his funeral to be over (this was yesterday). I still want to be reading and looking up and researching and sending my dad care parcels and food that might help him. How sad to wish my dad alive when he wouldn't want to live the way he was living at the end but that is what I'm feeling. It feels very selfish. I certainly didn't even want my mum to get rid of his hospital bed and all of the paraphernalia surrounding his last week because I wanted to be reminded of him. I never verbalised this and I never would in front of my mum.
Finally I feel like I want to offer support to anyone else going through a similar journey albeit they maybe at the start, middle, end or have already experienced this and are years ahead in their process. I was desperate for knowledge, information, a sense of a timeline throughout this whole situation. And although I am an intelligent reader and completely understand how individuals differ I also knew that this was important for me and a coping mechanism for myself. I only did it for me and was careful about who I talked to about this. For example, my sister is very similar to me so we did this together but my mum would rather not know. I am not and would never say there is a right or wrong way just different approaches.
I genuinely have never met anyone like my dad. He was sociable and had a knack of making everyone feel important and worthy and really listened to people in conversations. People would meet him once and feel like he was one of their best friends. He was funny in a genuinely funny way-I was never embarrassed by him, ever. Even as a moody teenager, I always knew that I'd won the parent lottery with my dad and my friends would say the same, then and now. My son knows he won the grandparent lottery with having the grandad that he had for 11 years as well and he is feeling the emptiness also. I don't really know where to start with processing all of this and I usually have quite a lot of awareness and insight into my mental health.
Feeling heartbroken, privileged and lost x
