I never thought that by the time I reached 31 I would have to say goodbye to one of my parents. Nor did I imagine when my father was diagnosed with cancer, specifically mesothelioma, that he would be gone in less than 3 years. I wasn’t prepared for it, and I didn’t know how to grieve. In fact, I’m still not sure that I know how to grieve, or that I have been grieving properly, or that I will ever get completely through the grieving process.

It was almost exactly two and a half years from the time my father was diagnosed with mesothelioma until the day he died. He died the day after Christmas. It’s been almost 6 months now since he passed away, and in many ways I’m still adjusting to him not being here. When it happened, I was devastated. I remember crying and thinking I would never be able to stop the tears. And then I went numb. I pushed it inside and tried to just hold myself together, and that seemed to work ok, so I kept it up.

Of course at the viewing and the funeral service, I was a wreck, speaking to everyone about him, pouring my heart out about how important he was to me, in so many ways it seemed so unreal. I couldn’t believe it had happened. It just couldn’t be real. It was just a nightmare that I would wake up from and everything would be ok again, and he would be alive still.

That wasn’t the case, though. It was real. It had happened and I couldn’t fix it. Anyone who knows me knows I hate not having control over a part of my life. I feel helpless and that’s not something I deal well with. In this moment, I felt more than helpless. I felt destroyed and felt like nothing really mattered anymore. I had lived through both my mom’s parent’s passing away, but this was closer. This was a man who had always been healthy and even after his diagnosis, had stayed active.

I didn’t know how to feel. Inside, my head was spinning. My emotions were up and down. I was happy that my oldest son had so many good memories with his Pop-pop, and then so sad that his little brother would never remember his grandfather, since he was only a year old when he died. I was happy he was there to walk me down the aisle at my wedding, but sad that he’d never gotten a chance to see the townhouse that my family and I had moved into the month before he left us.

I helped plan the funeral. Made sure there would be music he liked. Helped pick out the urn that would grow into a tree we could plant in his yard. Helped my step-mom with making sure it was the service that would be perfect for him.

The first time I had a dream that my dad was in, I woke up, tears streaming down my face, barely able to function for the next few hours. My life was a rollercoaster. Some days I was happy, and everything was fine, I went through the day like nothing was wrong. Other days were horrible, and I would be angry for no reason, and the tiniest things would send me into a horrible rage. There were mornings that I didn’t even want to get up and drag myself through the day. I lost track of things, lost track of time. I forgot things and started to slip into these horrible cycles of irresponsibility. I would work all day, and then come home and plant myself on the couch for the rest of the night. I forced myself to interact with my kids, and functioned as much as I could day to day, but I found I just didn’t care.

Finally, the stress, the emotions and everything else that I had been building up for months, like a giant ticking time-bomb, finally ticked its final tick and exploded. I cracked and broke. I stepped down from a higher position at work, I withdrew from people and I just stopped dead in my tracks. My entire world froze in that moment and I knew I needed to do something. I felt like I was suspended in space, floating for a brief time, unsure of what my next move needed to be.

I wish I could say that a giant lightbulb lit up and the stars aligned and I figured everything out, but of course, that isn’t what happened. I’m still figuring things out. I did enroll in school, and I’m starting to find things to laugh about again, but I’ve also grown and learned a lot. I’ve learned that it really is true that you need to treasure each day, because, in a flash, it’s gone. I’ve decided I need to not get stuck in the present, but look towards the future, towards a brighter tomorrow.

I realized that the feelings I was having, the way I was acting, while completely justified, wasn’t how my dad would want me to act. He would want me to embrace life, to live it to its fullest. He would want me to love my kids and bring them the beautiful memories that I have of growing up with my dad. He’d want me to strive to be successful in everything in my life and he would want me to share the kindness and generosity that he showed everyone whose path he had crossed. And so, as the pieces have slowly begun to fall into place, my path has started to reveal itself and the future looks brighter.

To those reading this, that have experienced a major loss of a loved one, know this, there are others who have felt what you feel. And it hurts, and it’s terrible. It makes you feel a hundred terrible feelings, and you will feel the pain from each and every one of those feelings in their fullest extent. But you will heal. It will get better, and life will keep going. Make memories that last forever, for you and for yours.