Loss

We will all suffer the loss of someone we love at some time in our lives. That's part of being alive. It's one of the most difficult experiences imaginable.

For me the greatest loss I have experienced is the death of my dad. Not a day goes by without me thinking of him. His bright blue eyes and cheeky smile. He could make anyone laugh and would do anything for anyone in need.  I always thought he was too good to be true. Maybe he was just too good for this life.

Every day for the past 24 years I have missed him and wished we hadn't lost him. He was too young and too vibrant to leave this life. Every day I wish my son and my husband had known him and that he had known them too. He would have been an amazing grandad. He would have loved all of his grandchildren and shamelessly spoilt them rotten. I know he would approve of my husband and he would have been proud of how we fought to get to this place in our life together.

Dad was just 53 when he took his last breath.  I was with him at the hospital that night. He had been in palliative care for a few weeks and some nights I would sleep in the chair by his bed. He couldn't talk to us anymore, the brain melanoma was taking away his ability to function. The morphine took him off to another place. But the pain was still there, we could see it in his face and hear it in every breath he struggled to take.

Usually mum would have been with him, but this night I had convinced her to go home for some rest. A few hours after she left I noticed Dad's breathing had changed. I called the nurses, they checked him and decided there was no need to phone mum to come back to the hospital just yet. A couple of hours later his breathing changed again, became really strained and developed a rattling noise. The nurses called mum and told her to come back to be with him. While we waited for her to get there I talked to Dad constantly. Even though we'd been told he couldn't hear us I didn't believe it. I told him what a wonderful father he was. How much my sister and I loved him. I told him how much mum loved him. I kept asking him to hang on just a little bit longer until she got there.

Around 3am his breathing became very strained, I could hear the pain in each breath and see how hard he struggled for each one. I held his hand and pleaded with him to wait for mum. But she didn't arrive and eventually I couldn't bear to see/hear his suffering any longer. So I squeezed his hand, kissed him on the cheek and told him that it was okay. That we all loved him and knew how much he loved us. That it was ok to let go if it was too hard to keep fighting. And just like that he let his breath out and didn't take another. That was his last breath. The struggle was over for him.

A few minutes later mum arrived and I heard her howl in pain from down the corridor as the nurse told her that Dad was gone. She was totally devastated that she wasn't with him when he passed and I believe it took her a very long time to forgive me for being the one who held his hand as he died. But in my heart I truly believe that he didn't want mum to see him take his last breath. He didn't want that to be her last memory of him. As it is for me.

Every day I wish my dad was here with us and I miss him still.