Ita my dad's birthday

[reddsfamily]

I just joined this site so i dont really know what to do. I'm Sam (short for Samantha), i'm 17 and i just lost my father to cancer on the 4th. He would have been 57 today. He was only diagnosed with cancer February of last year. It was already in stage 4. We didnt know that it was going to be so fast. The past month he was slowly getting sicker and sicker. I didnt realize that he had lost over 50 lbs until i started looking back at pictures.  I don't realy know what to do. It hasn't been long enough that I accept it.  Mostly i just pretend it didnt happen. 

We dont know for sure what happened that night. He sat up in bed to go to the bathroom and the next scond he fell off the bed and hit the glass door. My brother and I (hes 21) ran over to the room and he was on the floor. We called 911 and I had to talk to the dispatcher, and tell my brother how to do chest compressions. We live right next to a hospital but the ambulance took forever. Just that thursday hope hospice had been over for the first time and he had signed a DNR. But we couldnt find it, it wasnt in the packet where it was supposed to be. The fire men and emt worked on him because we couldnt find the paper. I think i am happy they couldnt because it made his death more definite. If we had the DNR and they let him die there could have been the posssibility that he survived.

He didnt respond to the emts working or anything. He was on the floor in our living room covered by a comforter. The coroners took forever to get here. It was terrible.   We just had his service on saturday but it didnt do anything for me.  Everyone said it might help with closure but not for me.  Everyone was just staring at my brother and I and my mom. I didnt like it . 

i have to go to school everyday and i hate it. My teachers have been really nice but i still hate being there.  I would rather spend more time with my mom.  But i get sick easily so i already miss alot of school so its not good for me to miss more. I have to keep my grades up for my senior year so i can go to college.

But i cant even go to the college i want to anymore. I dont want to leave town and we couldnt afford it. My mom barely makes enough money to support us. My dad made allt eh money for our family.

I guess i dont know how to grieve. everyone does it differently i know. i just dont know what to do.

 

The picture is my favorite of him. Because he looks so happy with my grandma.

[rlolheiser]

Sam, my heart goes out to you for the loss of your father.  I can imagine it is hard at such a young age to lose your father.  I lost mine 4 years ago this month, and I am much older but the hurt was unbearable.  I still miss my dad and wish he were here. 

It is a lovely picture you have posted, he looks very happy.  You are right that everybody grieves differently, the most important thing you have to do is be kind to you.  You have the right to feel pain, and to cry.  There isn't a right or wrong way to feel at this time.  I remember my dad's funeral, I couldn't talk to anybody all I could do is cry and I too hated that everybody stared at me, but I think that is because they didn't know what else to do.  There just aren't right words to say.

Take life a day at a time, and remember the good times you had with your father, be there for your mother, do what you can, it is important for you to go to school, I am sure that your father would want you to.  Maybe they have a place for you to sit when it gets to hard to attend classes, or maybe a counselor to speak to when you feel your not handling things to well.

My young friend, I wish I had the magic words for you, but only small steps each day will take you on your road to your future.  You can't worry about college right now.  I know what it is like to not have the money for education, and maybe later you can look into grants and loans.  There is time to worry about college later, just go one day at a time.  Hold your mom's hand, and go on the journey together, it is a different life, and you will need each others help...

I believe that our dad's are in heaven watching us as we go through each day and they want us to be alright.  I will keep you and your family in my thoughts and prayers.. and I wish you peace .. 

Leah

[reddsfamily]

Thank you, so much.

I coudlnt really cry at his funeral, only when a friend of his started talking directly at me. 

I love the picture, i dont remember the last time he smiled like that. It seems like hes been sick for so long, even though its only been a year.  All my memories are tainted by the cancer. Its all i can remeber now. he was so unappy with being sick.  He ended up being in a bad mood most of the time and it made it hard to even be around him.   It drove me nuts because i knew he was getting wrose but he was always so angry.

He always got so mad when i would be home from school. He was a lot more old fashioned than my mom. He was an exmarine, something that made being sick even worse for him becasue he never wanted to accept that he was weak.

[butterfly13]

My heart also goes out to you.What a handsome picture of your dad.I know it's hard,but try to remember all the good times that you had with him,of him smiling and laughing like he was in the picture you posted.A few months before my mom died she was also in a bad mood all the time,not so nice to me-which wasn't like her at all.At the time I was really upset with the way she was acting but looking back I know it was just because she really wasn't feeling good and was afraid of what was happening.I will keep you in my prayers!

[agnaq111809]

My condolensces to you Reddsfamily and anyone else.  I was just reading how when a parent was in his/her last days, they were not happy.  My mother passed away in November with lung cancer.  We found out just a month before.  We were both very upset, angry, in denial at first.  We just felt like we were put in a corner with no choice.  Yes, my mother was 81 and it's hard when the doctors recommend nothing else as the cancer was in Stage 4 and they took into consideration her age.  When I think back, I wish that I could've been able to cover her in my insurance and had the cancer removed.  I don't know if that would've help to have her live longer.  My mother and I knew we couldn't be angry forever at the cancer.  But in the last days she wasn't happy at all.  I felt that she had some anticipation there but I think she was more worried about leaving us behind.  I kept telling her that we would be o.k. But how does one tell a loved one who is passing away that when s/he's gone from this earth, it's going to be hell.  We all loved my mother very dearly.  I too wasn't there when she had her last breath.  I think she knew that I couldn't take it.  I pray that she forgave me in the end.  My two grown children were with her though and they were were darling grandchildren who gave her a chance to see great-grandchildren.  Thank-you for listening.  God Bless you and yours.

[socal2010]

That's a great picture Sam. I'm so sorry for your loss. I know exactly what you mean about the funeral. I remember at my Dad's funeral I felt like everyone was staring, like my family was on display or something. Then to make it worse, we had to walk out of the church first, with everyone standing and staring at us. It was awful and not in any way comforting.

Since it's so soon for you, I don't think you should put so much pressure on yourself with school. Do the best you can, but don't expect miracles. School will always be there. You have been through a major trauma at losing your Dad, so just make sure you're taking care of yourself and that you're reaching out to the people you feel close to. (((hugs)))

[Kelly]

Dear Members,

We are excited to mention that we are moving to a more new and improved message boards on MONDAY MORNING AUGUST 9th! The boards will be done for a few hours while we are making the conversation. Remember we posted information about this move a month ago. For some of you this might seem a bit sudden,  but when we were reviewing the site we determined the current message board you are using is out of date and the company that designed it is no longer in existence. The good news is this new message board will have new features that have been requested in the past like more fields we can add to your profiles and a chat room up to 20 people at one time. If we find the chat room is bursting at the seams we will add additional room for extra people. All your old posts, private messages and such will be migrated to the new message board. You might have to put up your profile picture again but not sure. The new company will be doing the migration for us. Here is a short list of some of the new features on the board:

- Custom Profile Fields- Users can customize their profile pages by selecting a background color or background image, with tiling options.- Facebook and Twitter Integration- users can respond to multiple posts at once with "mini-quote"- Pinned discussion threads - like welcome to our board etc.- Announcements made across some boards or the entire message board- Search: Users can easily find all content generated by a particular member, by clicking the 'Find Content' button that appears on the main profile page, or in the Mini Profile Popup which can be accessed throughout the board. The results page allows content to be filtered by application, as well whether the member created it or merely participated in it. - Privacy: allows users to sign in anonymously, hiding them from the online users list. Users also have the option to disable personal conversations and user-to-user emails, as well as ignore other users if necessary.

The next exciting piece of news about the new message board is it will have a new domain name of www.grieving.com for search engine optimization purposes. It will still be apart of Beyond Indigo and can be found through www.beyondindigo.com. We will be redirecting your current URL's to this new domain name but we might miss a few. If that is the case simply go back to www.grieving.com or www.beyondindigo.com to find your message board thread. We will try to make the transition as seamless as possible. 

The bottom line is the new board will give us room to grow our community and more options to interact better with each other. 

If you have any questions please direct them to feedback@beyondindigo.com. 

Kelly Baltzell, MACEO/PresidentBeyond Indigo Family