Hello All,
My name is Dani. I registered on this site because I am struggling greatly with overcoming the loss of my father. My father was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer (caused from asbestos) in June of 2007 and passed away 8 months later on February 28th, 2008. He was put on hospice two weeks before he died and those two weeks are what haunt me now. I chose to stay by his bedside throughout those two weeks because he was my hero. I slept next to him every night, gave/managed his medications while the hospice nurses weren't there, and was simply there next to him for support because I was daddy’s little girl.
My father was the strongest, most loving man I have ever met. He worked up until one month before he died and he could hardly walk out the door his last day. He never complained of being in pain nor ever said he was afraid of death. He remained strong and smiling until his last breath. He knew he had to stay strong for us kids as we were all young. I was 20, my brothers were 17 and 19 and he had two baby girls with my stepmom who were 3yrs and 8months when he passed. My father was only 53 years old when he died and was a very healthy, athletic man.
It has been 3 years since I lost my hero, my daddy and it was at the two year mark that I really started to struggle. I have weekly dreams of my father having died, coming back to life, and dying again of cancer. I freak out in my dreams because I am consciously aware that he has already died. In these dreams I experience everything I experienced throughout those last two weeks of his life. Witnessing him not able to eat and looking like a skeleton, to his weak voice and yellow skin. His breathing and sleeping patterns were the most traumatic for me to watch and is what specifically haunts me in these dreams.
I am in pain. When I think about him, I tear up. It is difficult for me to remember him healthy and athletic because my mind is tainted by him being sick. The saying "I miss you more than words can express" has never meant more. I would give the world just to hug him again or see his sweet, soft, loving smile. I know I will see him again one day, but I need to be able to overcome the pain of his death in this life and not the next.