It's been 1 year since my dad passed away and I still tear up everytime I think about it.
We weren't close, he left us when I was 4 and it was only a few years ago we got back in touch more than the occasional phone call. He wasn't cruel or bad but he wasn't there.
He was a very troubled man and I know he cared about me and my sister but I still have a lot of pain from that relationship.
He was diagnosed around Easter with Bile Duct Cancer stage 4. The doctors kept saying that once he started chemo it would help a lot, but he never got to start chemo.
They operated to remove tumors and put in a stent and he ended up with an infection that just wouldn't go away.
If nothing else, he was a lively, energetic and adventurous man, but he was trapped in hospital for months and due to COVID there were visiting restrictions, coupled with me living 5 hours away and heat starting my first job as a qualified teacher. Eventually he ended up in a hospice and died only a day after I managed to see him there.
No one told me how bad he was until I saw him. I thought he was there because my step mum couldn't take care of him in their two storey house, but once I got there they told me the truth. He wasn't coming out and he was drugged to the gills on opioids for the pain.
The thing that sticks with me is how he apologised to me. He apologised for all the problems we'd had through the years and all the ways he'd hurt me and my sister.
I accepted his apology because what else could I do? He looked so sick and he was scared.
He was 65 when he passed and he was just about to retire. He had so many plans. It's just so unfair that he didn't get to do anything, he worked and he supported my step mum (a self-centred woman who had caused many arguments through the years), and he never got to enjoy his rest.
My grandmother just turned 83 and she's heartbroken and lost that I grieve for her as much as him. She doesn't even have a grave or memorial to visit and my step mum ran off with his ashes and won't speak to any of us after misunderstandings at his funeral.
I'm not religious, so I don't believe that he's resting now or that he's doing what ever he wants in an afterlife. I just know he's gone and it's not fair.
I feel like a child when I say that, but it's the truth and what hurts my heart the most.
I don't know how to get past this grief and I feel guilty for the grief as we were never close. Why do I get to grieve him now when I did so little to reach out before?
I'm not sure why I've written this here. I don't really want platitudes or sympathy, I just needed to say it, I suppose.
Thank you for listening.
