Losing my dad

rwagner

Hello, everyone. What a wonderful place this is for all of us.

I'm looking for strategies and support for helping my dad. He's got stage IV melanoma with mets in lung and brain. He beat melanoma twice 25 years ago. Now it's back with a vengence.
The brain mets are causing him confusion and taking away his ability to be a part of life. We are running out of treatments. Doctors are guessing he has 4-6 months at most.

I want to be with him for every moment he has left. It is so hard to see my daddy, who was so strong and could fix everything from a broken furnace to a broken heart, fading away.

I guess I'm hoping someone can tell me how to hold onto him. I wish I could just turn back time to when he was healthy, before I was an adult in the real world where sometimes things get broken and can't be fixed.

How do you let go of your parent?

God bless you all.
R

lindaprocopio

No answers; just a hug.
(((Big hug))). All of God's creatures travel this earth for a limited time, ALL of us. But love never dies. You never have to let go of that. Make the most of the time you have left with him, and then keep his love and memory forever alive by living the lessons and truths he taught you by his example.

kristiepuff

The only advise I can offer
The only advise I can offer to you is to spend whatever time you can with him, try to be there when his time of passing comes, and make sure you have a few photos or a video clip with his voice.

I turned seventeen 12 days ago, and my dad died 258 days ago from brain cancer. We knew that he only had a few months, but his death hit everyone really suddenly as it literally happened in less than 48hrs. On Friday night he was fine, on Saturday he was worsening, and by noon Sunday he had died. I don't really have that many good memories of the few months he was sick - there isn't many positive things about a 16yr old having to help feed her father, help dress him, or carry him around the house or wheel him in a wheel chair. The last thing he snarled to me was "What the h--- are you doing?", when I accidentally bumped his chair into the wall maneuvering it through the hallway. The morning he died, I didn't want to face it and just hid in my room until my mom came in and told me, then I spent most of the day in there.

I can tell you that I would do almost anything to have a video of his voice, even with just one word on it. Every day I wish that I could go back to the week before and spend every day with him, and I wish that I had the nerve to give him a hug and say goodbye, and to tell him that I loved him (which to be honest, I didn't really say too much). It flat out s---s that I have to live the rest of my life trying to keep memories of my dad that were never caught on camera, and regretting that I never fully closed our relationship.

Please, do yourself a big favor and capture whatever memories you have of him, and even if he knows it already, tell him you love him.