Lessons on Grief: Losing a Parent to Cancer

My dad passed away from lung cancer two weeks after my tenth birthday. It was September 2004. I had just started the fifth grade.

My family and I were eating dinner when my aunt called and delivered the news. I remember staring at my plate, letting the weight of my dad's mortality crash onto me. I felt everything and nothing at the same time.

My dad had been suffering from single cell lung cancer for at least a few months - maybe a year, maybe more. The sequence of events feel like a blur, but I still remember the emotional imprints.

Dad had recently relocated to Chicago, several states away from our hometown in Boston. I resented him for starting a new life somewhere else, without me.

Then the word "cancer" was brought into discussion. I didn't fully understand what it meant at the time. I knew that things were going to change, I just didn't realize how much.

My dad started undergoing chemotherapy, but the prognosis wasn't favorable. Right before he passed, he fought through the pain and flew home one last time.

I remember feeling afraid the last time I saw him. Cancer and chemo had whittled his body away to practically nothing. He had lost a significant amount of weight, and I noted how frail and lethargic he had become.

I was already numb when we received the news that he had passed. I had been bracing myself for this outcome, but it still felt surreal. I didn't cry. I just sat there, trying to process everything.

I remember curling up on the couch afterwards and tuning into an episode of Full House. I found some wry amusement in sharing our names with the show's father-daughter duo, Danny and Michelle.

During my dad's funeral, I didn't shed a tear while my family mourned. Instead, I found myself experiencing violent nausea during the service. I vomited in the bathroom, sipping ginger ale between bouts of heaving.

I was oddly secretive about my dad's death for many years. I tried my best to speak about him in the present tense. I dodged questions that sought to unravel my lies by omission. I didn't want the attention, pity, or forced acknowledgement of a trauma that I hadn't yet processed.

As I got older, I finally started unraveling my grief. I addressed emotions that I had stifled for years, cycling through feelings of sadness, anger, and guilt. Working through these repressed feelings helped me feel less disconnected with myself and my bereavement.

The process of resolving my grief and trauma taught me so many valuable lessons along the way. I'd like to share a few with you.

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Grief is Not Linear

While processing my dad's death, I didn't have a clear idea of how long grief was "supposed" to last, or what it "should" look like. During my teen years, I stumbled across a theory called the "five stages of grief," also known as the Kübler-Ross model.

Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross developed this model to explore her theory of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Psychologist Christina Gregory observed:

"People studying [Kübler-Ross'] model mistakenly believed this is the specific order in which people grieve and that all people go through all stages…these stages are not linear and some people may not experience any of them."

Grief doesn't have a set end point, and it's something that doesn't fully disappear. It ebbs and flows throughout our lives. We don't recover from grief, we just make room for it.

Grief is an Individualized Process

For many years, I thought something was wrong with me because I wasn't able to grieve "appropriately." I often found myself dry-eyed in stark contrast with my family's tearful bereavement. I felt so much confusion and shame, and I kept wondering, Why can't I cry? Why don't I feel anything?

Later, I discovered that numbness and emotional avoidance are common responses to trauma. My ten-year-old self just didn't know how to process the aftermath of such a significant loss.

I needed time to slowly unravel the grief, layer by layer, rather than facing it all at once.

It's important to recognize that everybody grieves differently. Some people show more overt displays of grief, and others internalize their struggles. Your feelings and responses are natural, and being a "numb" griever doesn't mean you lack love or empathy. All forms of grief should be accepted and respected.

Loss is a Part of Life

Grief taught me that death is an inevitable part of life. Every single person will experience the loss of a loved one and the grief that follows.

We can't control death, but we can learn to accept it. We can develop healthy methods of coping with distressing experiences.

Our mortality drives us to cherish the moments that we share with loved ones. The fear of losing someone helps us recognize why they're so important to us. Without death, we wouldn't appreciate the fragile beauty of life.

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It was hard to lose my dad under such tragic conditions, but I'm grateful for the resilience that I've developed throughout my healing. I believe that this pain has shaped me into becoming a stronger, more empathic person.

Finding peace in suffering is essential to making the most of life. We can't control the circumstances that life throws at us, but we can manage the way we react to them.

I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't suffered this trauma. I just needed to find meaning in it.

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Michelle was raised in East Boston, MA. She holds a BA in Creative Writing with a Minor in Psychology from Lesley University, where she studied the art and craft of creative writing through workshop-based seminars and literary analysis courses. Michelle has taken on roles as an Editorial Intern at DigBoston Magazine and an Editorial Mentor Intern at The Marble Collection. She formerly managed over 50 editorial projects at Elsevier in Cambridge, MA.

Michelle has volunteered at 826 Boston as a college essay writing tutor and a publishing corp volunteer. In 2019, she was invited to participate as a panelist for aspiring teen writers at the Boston Public Library.

Michelle's poetry can be found in Commonthought Magazine, Boston Poetry Magazine, SLAB Literary Magazine, and Fearsome Critters Arts Journal. Michelle was also selected as a featured poet in JSJ Events' Empowered series.

Michelle enjoys video games, gaming conventions, and music festivals. She deeply values causes such as socioeconomic equality, social justice, support for the arts, and and animal rights.