On the 10th of August 2013, my life changed forever as I lost the man I loved most in the whole wide world; my Dad. I was 20 years old and the oldest out of my siblings as my brother was 15 and my sister was 6 and watching them go through this experience, but as children, still breaks my heart. Although my Dad had been ill for sometime I never acknowledged that the outcome of it all could result in his passing but I suppose that was my minds way of protecting my heart - to stay oblivious to the severity of the situation so that I did not have to deal with things I did not feel I could. I do not wish to go into details of his illness as I still find it hard to speak about but it was a long process of deterioration although the doctors still remained positive that he would receive a transplant and recover which unfortunately didn't happen and we lost him at the young age of 45.
I've experienced every awful emotion through my grief: anger, upset, guilt, resentment, jealousy, the list goes on. I do not believe things get better with time, (which is what everyone who has never experienced this tells me), instead I'm learning that you begin to grasp how to numb yourself to the pain. I've learnt that it's OK to be happy and have good times as it's what my Dad would have wanted, you can't live in that dark place forever or else your own health will be affected. I've also come to understand that unless people have experienced this they won't know what to say to make you feel better but you need to understand it can be awkward for them to try and provide comfort so you shouldn't get angry when something "silly" is said with good intentions. You're family are your rocks and you must all lean on each other for support through these hard times. Things do settle back into a new routine and life does go on, you have to embrace change and realise we can't change the past.
My aim of this blog is to help myself by venting my own feelings and frustrations, along with my progress and happy times and hopefully help others in a similar situation along the way so please share your comments.
Stephanie
