My Dad passed 2 weeks ago

I am really sorry to hear this. I lost my dad just over a year ago and he was 59. I had a 10 month old boy and was getting ready to return to work as a teacher after my maternity. I thought being busy/noise would help but it means I don't like being alone with my thoughts, I need podcasts to sleep. Fortunately I accessed counselling through education support as my school is part of this. Maybe look and see if you are? Something that helped me though was a poem about welcoming grief in and inviting her to sit at your table, don't be afraid of grief, because if there is grief, then love came first. 

Hi LMA! 

So sorry for your loss. I lost my husband to bowel cancer last June (2023) so I am only weeks away until the first anniversary of his passing. Like you there is so much that has happened within this last year he hasn't been here to see and and things still to happen that he won't see either. My son gets married in February next year and he will not see that and he only got to see the first two years of our little granddaughter's life when he longed so much to become a grandad. Little incidentals happen here and there and I just wish I could turn round and ask him what he thought of that but he's not here for me to do that. We were more or less married for 40 years and to begin trying to navigate life by yourself when you have had someone at your side all those years can be hard. Jay my husband worked solid for 50 odd years with hardly a sick day off you hear of people working to live he lived to work just like his dad before him he was a bit of a `workaholic`. He eventually retired in 2019 and it was just after that his illness became prominent and he just never got to enjoy his retirement because it became an everyday ocurrence with hospitals, doctors, oncologists clinics etc. He went from hardly being in a GP surgery or hospital to it more or less become a weekly or daily occurrence. He did go into remission at one point when the surgical team told him they had got rid of all his cancer but only months later it came back and wasn't leaving without him a second time. Several bouts of sepsis and the advancing cancer finally took it's toll on him and he passed on the 23rd June 2023. Grief affect people differently as you may well know. For me, I have been unable to cry for Jay when he was going through his treatment I thought I wouldn't stop but since he passed it just doesn't happen. Just two months after he passed, my older sister got a bowel cancer diagnosis and it was so uncanny that the surgical team looking after Jay looked after her too. She is fine though and her diagnosis was not as extensive as his and she went in and got her tumour cut out last October which we were told was quite small and it didn't require her to have any chemo or radiotherapy treatment. She is making a good recovery and will just need regular check ups at hospital. My son's future mother-in-law just passed away last month also from cancer so it's been quite a year. When you get time, if you haven't done so maybe try some counselling. MacMillan do it here and I got 6 free sessions with Marie Curie by telephone arranged through MacMillan. It helps to have someone phone you maybe just once a week to check in on how you are. I have reached out to other sources too. I have contacted the website CALM and the text service SHOUT I was very desperate last year when my husband was going through his treatment. I was told that the inability to cry for Jay was quite a normal reaction and this can happen sometimes. I just think if I get that one big outburst I will feel better. I am hoping it still happens but when I don't know. I wish you well going forward. Take Care. 

Vicky x