I knew he would die the moment he was diagnosed. So when he did, two years later, after liver cancer did its work, it felt…appropriate.
The death itself was messy. I watched him gasp for air, in a coma, supposedly unable to feel pain yet “he knows you are here with him,” until the last breath was drawn, his mouth and neck went taut for a few more unproductive attempts for air after that. Electrical impulses, they say, nothing more.
I can still hear the horrid crackle of his rapid breathing impeded by fluid, could set a metronome to its cadence. It was so fast, it felt panicked. It induced panic in us when we walked into his hospital room. It was a sound that demanded intervention, intervention he had made clear he did not want.
That sound, it haunted me. The first night without him I heard it in my ears, in the darkness of my room. And when I woke in the morning, gradually remembering where I was and why, I remembered. And just as I began to sink deeper into the bed, I felt him there, by the closet, looking at me.
I don’t believe in ghosts. But I knew as if it were fact that he was there to see me remember his death, and to comfort me. Even if he was a projection of my imagination it diminished nothing. The feeling of him was so strong, I spoke out loud. I told him I knew why he was there, and that I loved him, and that this sucked.
I waited for more sadness but it didn’t come. I got up, and went about the day like a person thrust on stage without any lines.
I ran. That is what I do. I put on my shoes and ran out the door of my childhood home, down the same streets I took to my high school every day, craving the track under my feet. About five minutes later on a residential street, I found my rhythm, and my breath fell in line with my feet, and instantly my father’s breathing came back to me. I continued on, horrified at the image, the sounds from me matching my memory of his identically. Any moment I was going to lose it completely, and I started looking for a good place in the open to breakdown.
But then I realized something. This rate of breathing wasn’t as panicked as I had thought. It was a steady effort, working hard but not laboring, and until a moment ago I had been finding peace in that rhythm. If this is what my dad was experiencing, it wasn’t as frantic as I had imagined. It was work, but it was ok. I kept running.
He came to me again on the track after my last lap, standing against a tree just past the finish line at the start of the bend, watching over me as I recovered from my effort. I couldn’t see him, but he was occupying space. There was no question, and again I spoke to him. How many times had he seen me run this track? How would I ever run without him? The tears came so powerfully I bent down and braced myself on the rubber. I watched my tears fall below me, and the pattern they made on the dry surface looked like art, pulling me out of the hole I was falling into. I got up, told him I loved him, hopped the fence and ran home.
The past month has been awful. Most of the time I go on as if nothing happened, because I don’t know what else to do, and if you ask me how I am, which many people who care about me do, I would say “ok” because it seems that way at the time, but things have started cracking. I drive to the bottom of my street and can’t remember if I need to go right or left. I have no idea why I’m here or where I’m going. I look around me in the car for clues, open my spike bag to see what I brought with me. I can’t create. I get things done. I haven’t felt my dad since.
Until now. I saw a therapist a couple days ago, concerned about my current state, and she told me to get away from my daily schedule and sit in the quiet. That I was suppressing grief. Tonight, with Jesse away racing in Mont Tremblant, I packed up my car with supplies and Jude and headed to a nearby mountain lake.
I set up my tent, and lit a fire. Jude has never camped, so this may end very badly, but for now he is asleep. And sitting by this fire alone, I felt him again. These words bring tears all over because it is true that in the sitting still I can grieve. In the stillness is when he is with me. In the stillness I am also destroyed. And I hate it. I hate this pain, this missing him. I miss so many things that haven’t even happened yet. But I have to do it, because this past month I have been lost without him.
Hug your dad for me.
There is a list of attributes I wish I shared with you; long powerful legs, beautifully sculpted shoulders and your optimistic outlook. My first glimpse into your world was your story about body image. I had just lost a lot of weight and your words really hit home. I have been a flyer fan ever since. I will never know what it feels like to do a sub 16 5k or be on a podium. When I read of your fathers passing my heart broke for you. I can relate to your loss. I lost my father unexpectedly in 2008 and it destroyed me as well. It is hard to imagine living in a world where my dad no longer did. People say it gets easier, which is a little true but for a very long time when I was told ” it gets easier” I wanted to scream (sometimes I did). I didn’t want it to get easier. I was afraid I would start forgetting things. I feel him all the time and can even hear his laugh when I am still. I hope you are able to celebrate your fathers memory this weekend. I won’t tell you it will get easier because I believe that is bullshit but I will tell you this there will come a time where you laugh more than you cry, even if you are still.
Hi Lauren. I’m so sorry for your loss. I lost my father unexpectedly in March. He was 56 years old, I’m 26. The feelings you described are very familiar to me from the last four months.
I think it is totally normal to push the grief aside, go on as if nothing happened. Maybe it is how our bodies try to protect us from the grief that would otherwise tear us into pieces.
To me it seems the pain will never go away. It may change its character, but it stays there. We just have to learn to live with it.
I sincerely hope you will find a way to keep going. Stay strong it’ll take time but it’ll come <3
Thank you for sharing this. I lost my dad last August and know exactly what you mean about just moving through the day, getting things done, but knowing that your aren’t really ok but you don’t know what else to do. I keep moving through this year of firsts … His first birthday without him, our first Christmas without him, my parents’ anniversary. I dread every “milestone” and then get through that day and keep moving toward the next one. Anyway, I am glad to know I am not alone. Hope you find some peace in your time alone.
I will.
I lost my mom when I was 17 and the grief is still there. Losing a parent is an almost unbearable sadness. I’m so sorry you have to bear it.
I am so sorry for your loss, Lauren. I have not experienced the loss of a parent, but I have been by the side of my very best friend after her father died unexpectedly on our last year of high school. To this day, she tells me life never becomes “normal” again, it is a new normal. It’s been 14 years and there are still moments she feels out of breath and out of place, but I am sure that, like my friend did, you will find a way to see your dad in your life and feel him around you.
I don’t know what to say except so sorry for your loss. I hope today is better.
Thank you for your honesty Lauren, sharing your story so powerfully about a natural but devastating thing helps show that we as humans will need a long time to grieve, not just those bereavement days out of work. I wish I could say it gets better, and it might for you, because every person is different; when my mom died unexpectedly I was completely lost. My body went into shock and like your father’s breathing, that fuzzy feeling around my ears and the tight feeling all around my body is what plagues me. It’s not easy, and its ok to admit that. Your friends are here for you.
I can relate to every aspect of this post. From beginning to grieve when the diagnosis was given to seeing those I have lost well after they have passed. For me, I also begin grieving well before the sad days. I get anticipation grief when Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, birthdays, etc approach. Sometimes even weeks before I feel off. Sometimes I am very noticeably sad and irritated, sometimes it’s subtle and creeps up on me. Through it all there is one thing that has helped me and I will pass it on to you. I went into grief counseling after losing my mom and brother. The therapist told me that grief should be like how a child grieves. Intense crying and sadness for a given moment, but then, just as quickly as it came, the grief can go and playing and laughing may occur. She told me that people who don’t allow the moments of sadness and those who try to hold onto the moments of sadness are those who have the most trouble. It is being afraid to grieve or being afraid to not grieve (out of honoring your loved one) where people can get stuck. So, when my dad passed I let it come as it may and, while horribly painful, it was much easier to walk through knowing I could feel happy too, I wasn’t dishonoring him in those moments. I hope this Sunday is easy for you, but if not, let it come as it may. Cry, laugh, run…
“like a person thrust on stage without any lines” – growing up in the theater, this sentence brought the most visceral reaction out of me. I can imagine just how lost that feels, how confusing, how scary. I am so glad that you are taking some time away from the hustle and bustle of the world to grieve with Jude by your side. I am sending you a virtual hug 🙂
Thank you for this. I’m so, so sorry for your loss and for the pain you are feeling.
My dad died about a year and a half ago. For that first year I was numb. I pushed the pain aside and I knew on some level that it was there and that I wasn’t dealing with it, but I think I was afraid that if I let even a little of it in that it would break me right open. This is really weird but for that first year I actually carried his death certificate with me everywhere I went. Creepy, I know but I think my subconscious was trying to convince me to accept the finality of it.
I’m just now beginning to sit in the stillness as you have mentioned. In some ways it is awful, but in other ways it is beautiful. Because the pain means there was love. And there was so much love.
There’s nothing anyone can say to ease your pain or make you feel any way other than how you do. But please know that reaching out, sharing, and talking about a subject like grief that is so easily swept under the rug is incredibly brave and it will help you get through each day.
I am so sorry for your loss Lauren. I am thinking about you and your family daily.
I miss my Dad, too. *hugs*
Wonderfully written. Very sorry for your loss. I lost my mother as a young boy 34 years ago. Still feels like yesterday.
Hi Lauren. I lost my Mum last month, also to cancer, after about 4 years of her being sick. I just wanted to let you know that I feel similar (what was I doing again? why should i even care about x or y or z? don’t feel like talking to lots of people about my emotions… breaking down into tears suddenly with no warning whatsoever) and that you’re not alone in your grief. There’s nothing I can say that will make anything feel better I know, but I’m sending you love all the same. Let’s ‘hang in there’ together hon. XOXO
Its like losing a limb…there is a wonderful book by Joan Didion called the Year of Magical Thinking…which is really about processing grief…and how you can KNOW someone is gone, but still do things in your life as if they were still here. Your post – so well articulated – reminds me of this book. It won’t make it easier but it may put words to how you are processing such a profound loss. Which losing a parent is, no matter how or when it happens.
Beautifully written, Lauren. I am so, so sorry for your grief. Know that you are not alone. A lot of your fellow travelers do understand. Peace.
Lots and lots of love to you, Lauren. My stepdad — the only dad I had ever known — died 9 years ago, at age 40, of brain cancer. We knew it was coming and so, like you, it felt appropriate in a way. (I remember my mother calling me — I had just, a week before, moved from the east coast to Portland, OR — and feeling a sense of horrifying relief that the worst thing had finally happened.) My brother and sister, twins, were 8 at the time, and it was their loss almost more than my own that really shattered me. As others have said, you do go on. It is a forever altered version of ‘normal.’ You will always feel sadness, but eventually the mental images of those last moments will fade, and all the wonderful memories of your time together will remain vivid.
One of the things I carried with me from that time was the truly beautiful, remarkable way that our entire community of people, both those local to my family and the ones in my own life, came together to create a net for us as we fell. It still makes me cry to think of some of the moments of unbelievable generosity exhibited by people we hardly knew. It felt like something the world gave me as a tiny consoling gesture. I don’t know you personally — most of us don’t — but you have a remarkable, beautiful spirit that has made many of us feel seen and understood. We’ll catch you as well as we can. <3
I hate more than anything when someone says, ‘I’m so sorry, I know how it feels.’ So I won’t. I lost both my mother and father within five months of each other, four years ago. My mother to breast cancer and my father to a surgery to repair the damage radiation had caused after having beaten stage 4 cancer. It’s unbelievably lonely to be 36 and have no parents. I have two children, 6 and 2 and they are what keep me going. Everyone grieves differently and no way is right or wrong. Go with how you’re grieving and be ok with that. And I truly believe my children are what are keeping me going and ‘enjoying’ life again. Hugs to you and give that Jude a squeeze.
Hi, Lauren,
I’ve been a loyal fleshman flyer for what feels like years– your NYC marathon coincided with my first marathon, running on behalf of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, to raise awareness for MDS and AML, the leukemia my father was diagnosed of and died from in the span of about 3 months. I’m not as eloquent a writer as you, but since your last posting, I’ve had this strong urge to comment, and express my empathy and gratitude for your writing… so here goes, bear with me!
As someone who really struggled after my dad’s passing, I wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your experience. In those first few months, the only thing that helped me was reading every memoir I could of someone that lost a loved one. Shared experience, for lack of a better term, helped me better understand what i was going through and how to navigate through it. I’m really in awe of how happy and wonderful my life feels now, because at the time, I couldn’t fathom “being happy” again. At the time, the worst thing that could possibly happened to me had happened, and “now what” was a big question. I think I will always grieve at some level, but the soul searching stuff of the first year– I’m a more successful person for it. I feel like I understand love and gratitude and presence better.
This fall will mark five years without my dad, and your writing helped me today. I often don’t think back to “right after” because it elicits such raw emotion (also haunted by memories of his hospice breathing). while i miss him every day, most days it’s in a happy sense. i see one of my kids (who never met my dad) do something that is right out of his playbook, and i am filled with (seriously) pure joy and think, man do i miss him. Other days, it comes out of left field and is a sharp, tear inducing pang (often during shavasana, blarg!). I rarely say, “I miss my dad” out loud because my face crumples and I cry as soon as I say the words. The love and the loss is still so great. The title of your blog was like a sucker punch. I said it out loud and owned the sorrow and love and heartbreak anew. Thanks for the reminder to not suppress– it helps us love and be us, more deeply.
Near the end, he was drifting in and out as family visited, and he leaned over and told me he saw his father and his father was calling him. Coached by the hospice workers, I meekly comforted him, “it’s ok, dad. you can go.” and he looked at me and said, “but i don’t want to. i’m having too much fun.” words he lived by, and i’m trying to.
I don’t know you, but from your writings and musings on social media, I like to think you’re cut from the same cloth as my dad: hard working, insanely fun to be around, and genuine. You and your family are in my thoughts. My very best regards,
I think I read in your eulogy for your dad frank that he loved camping. Well, there you are: camping with your boy; (re)creating powerful positive memories for your son. The Dude is lucky to have such an A1 Mother as you appear to be and it’s a beautiful thing that you had the father you had – who, from the pictures and comments you’ve posted on soc-med, looked like such a lovely guy. Ideally, we’d all go at the same time in an explosion of happiness, but we don’t. I miss my Dad too, horribly. Look after yourself and trust your feelings no matter if you feel happy or sad or numb or temporarily nuts. Grief is a strange bird.
PS you are creating – you put your feelings into words – we read them and you move us.
Lauren -I am in the midst of losing my mom to cancer. Like you, I knew she would die from the moment she was diagnosed. The good days are really good and the bad days are more often than I’d like. Saying thank you for sharing your story hardly seems like enough, but know that it comes from my heart, and the heart of all of us who have had the loss. I think of you often and am proud that you are taking steps to heal in a healthy way.
Hi Lauren, your experience with your dad is almost identical to what happened to mine three years ago next week. I can still see him lying in the hospital bed in the hospice ward, where they put him to die after they pulled the plug. The image still brings tears to my eyes and physically makes me nauseous. He lived 4 more days. During those 4 days, people came and went, my sister and I fought, my kids cried and I tried to be strong. I remembered and cherished the memories we had and found myself wondering if, when I died, my children would have a favorite tradition like I shared with my dad. My parents divorced when I was 7, but without fail, every other Friday my daddy would show up and take us to Pizza Hut. Every Friday we would get a Large Super Supreme pan pizza and talk about what he had missed in our lives the past two weeks. So on that night, when they declared him brain dead, and unhooked all the machines keeping him alive, I ordered a large Super Supreme pan pizza and had it delivered to the hospital. Not caring what anyone thought, I placed a piece on a plate for Dad and laid it on his chest and thanked him for all the great memories. The next day, my 11 year old daughter ran a 5k in his hometown, in his honor. She took over 3 minutes off of her pr and was 2nd overall female. When he did pass on the 4th day, we donated his body to science and they came and got him right away. It was about 4 months later when I got a call telling me my dad had done a great job and his course was complete. They had cremated his body and we could come and pick him up. It was another year before I felt strong enough to actually go.
Hi Lauren,
I’m so sorry for your loss. My dad was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2008 and passed away last month, at the age of 63. We had his memorial yesterday, and the church was packed full of people whose lives he’d touched. Like your own father, my dad was an energetic, creative guy with a big heart, and his final decline over the last year makes me ill to think about. In a way, I have been grieving for dad ever since the initial diagnosis, but nothing could have really prepared me for the crushing, nauseating sadness I felt when I saw his old pictures and videos and baseball caps set up for the memorial and realized he is really gone. It was good to read your words this morning, because I had woken up at 4 am, bawling my eyes out at the unfairness of it all.
Anyway, thanks for sharing, you and everyone in the comments. I’m still sad but now I feel a bit less lonely.
I lost my dad to cancer when I was 23. I didn’t think he would die when diagnosed. But a lot can change in nine months. It sounds strange, but there were silver lining to his death: a new imperative to be true to myself.
Losing him still feels wrong. But who I am today feels right. He would be proud.
Lauren – I am so extremely sorry for your loss. Losing a parent has been my worst nightmare since I was a child and learned what death was. And I have a sense from your first Runner’s World posts how important your dad was to you.
Your post choked me up
I lost my best friend to cancer in March. She had been battling for 2.5 years and I thought losing her would absolutely destroy me. 2 things really helped. My counselor told me that I could not get around my grief or take any shortcuts. I had to feel it, all of it, at some point. So I worked on letting it in when it would come up and I actually proactively scheduled long cries and hugs with my boyfriend. The second thing was stillness – just like you mentioned. I started meditating for the first time in my life and listened to healing books on CD anytime I was in the car and the change was dramatic.
I wish you peace.
So sorry for your loss. I lost my dad 10 years ago & still miss everything about him. Father’s Day weekend is always hard. Thank you for sharing. I hope your camping trip went well and was the quiet retreat you needed
In honor of my dad, I offered one of his signature huge bear hugs to anyone who could use it on father’s day. Sounds like you could benefit.
Also, I’ve had very similar post-passing visits from my dad — a couple immediately after his passing and a few other times over the years. Aren’t they comforting?
I agree with folks who say you have to acknowledge your grief. But there’s no schedule. So cut yourself a ton of slack.
I’m always at a loss for words when someone is experiencing grief, but I do know how to give a great big hug… I love your strength, truthfulness, and willingness to write about anything and everything. Thank you for sharing, I hope to see you soon!!
Wow, the same thing happened to me when I lost my grandfather in 2001. We were very close while I was growing up.
When he passed, I awoke one morning to see him watching over me in my room.
The words he offered me were a comfort in the days, weeks, months of desolation ahead. But he offered me the Strength to carry on, knowing he would always be with me. Watching with Love.
My thoughts and prayers are with you in this valley.
Let him be the wind to push your wings higher.
Sorry for your loss. I do know how awful that breathing is right at the end before someone passes its horrific and sticks with you. Eventually that part does go away and every once in awhile something will trigger that memory. I watched my grandfather deteriorate daily from leukemia and was there daily at the end and sat with him the last morning he was alive. He was like a dad to me and was a big hole when he was gone. You will never lose the memories of your dad and will always feel his presence with you when he knows you need it the most.
Lauren, sorry for your loss. I lost my dad 23 years ago, and my mom 2weeks later. There is not a day that has gone by that I haven’t thought about them. As I see my youngest son preparing to g off to college in the Fall, I feel bad that he never knew my parents. It get easier, I think, but the void will always be there.
You can’t even imagine how incredible it was to read this. My mom passed away two weeks ago Wednesday and I am exactly where you are–suppressing the grief, scared to feel it, scared to experience that profound loss for REAL. This week has been especially tough as it has been harder and harder to push it away. It has been a little over a month since I’ve talked to her–by far the farthest we’ve ever gone, and I can feel the absense in my bones. I keep waiting for her to call me. I keep reminding myself to call her. Then I remember. And it’s the biggest gut-punch ever. I keep thinking “who am I HERE with?” Where? LIFE! Who I am in LIFE with if she is no longer living? I don’t know. Running and my kids are my entire sanity right now. So I wanted to say that I get it. And you aren’t alone. And to thank you. Namaste, sister.
Beautifully written. I am so sorry for your loss. I have recently found your blog and so appreciate the honesty in your writing. Best wishes for your recovery from this loss, as well as your physical recovery from surgery.
Lauren,
I am so sorry. But thank you for sharing. My father died when I was 23. I have had everything pent up until today. I never shed a tear, but today was different. When I read this I cried deep and long and I am different somehow. I am 46 now. Too long. I miss you dad.