How to Cope with the Loss of a Loved One Due to Cancer
Cancer Is Devastating
Cancer is one of the most devastating diagnoses a person can get. A person with cancer can be fine one day and the next can be brought down by cancer. I remember my father being his normal self, walking around well, laughing, and being the strongest person I knew a couple months before his lung cancer brought him down so fast. The strong man that I knew my whole life wasn't the same anymore. The man who had to endure racism when he was a sharecropper while being a single dad to six children after his first wife passed and who worked long hours to put food on the table when I was growing up started not to look the same. He was getting so weak. The treatment that he was given for the cancer was working well at first, but soon it started to fail his body. After he found out his lung cancer had started to spread to other areas in his body, he decided he didn't want to take the treatment anymore, but to go into hospice care. He wanted to put it in God's hands and to be ready when it was his time to go. After seeing him so sick, not being able to eat, and seeing how the pain started being so bad in his 84-year-old body before he passed, I knew I wanted to encourage young people and others one day to never pick up the habit of smoking or to have the courage to get some help to stop smoking if they already are. I want to let people know that they need to be serious about their health and to make sure they get their regular check ups.
It Will Be Difficult at First But You Will Get Through It
After a loved one dies of cancer, it will be difficult to accept at first, but trust me you can get through it. It may take some time to sink in and to accept that they are no longer here, but eventually, it will get better. For some people, it will take just a few weeks like me and for some years, but you will smile again. The way I started to cope with the death of my father was by remembering the good times my siblings and I had with him. I remember the family gathering where he would buy fish from a fish man who lived not too far from us so the family would get together and have a fish fry. We would have such a good time. I loved hearing him laugh and how he would sometime clap when he laughed. I thought it was the sweetest thing ever. I remember how close him and my son Jonathon were. Jonathon was like his little angel. Everywhere my father went, he wanted to follow. My father really enjoyed spending time with him. Now my father is my son's angel. So when I would want to cry I thought about how good of a father he was and that he will always be in my heart. It has been almost five years since he passed and now I can say I truly have accepted that he is gone and I have the belief he is in a better place. Knowing that he is not in pain anymore gives me comfort also.
My Father and My Son Jonathon
Good Buddies
Above is a picture of my son Jonathon and my dad. They were two peas in a pod. They thought so much of each other. He looks like his grandpa and when I think of my dad I look at Jonathon and instead of crying I smile.
