I can never find the right words to tell people when they ask about my dad, so I’ve started being completely up front about it.  After all, it’s the undeniable harsh reality of my life. My dad died from cancer when I was only seven years old. 

I’m always met with the same pitiful and sympathetic eyes from people who are in utter shock at what I just abruptly blurted out. The initial look of shock is quickly followed by  “I’m sorry,” almost as if it is a reflex in response to hearing something so tragic.

In recent years, I have noticed how people feel guilty for having no prior knowledge of my circumstance.  “I had no idea,” they commonly say. But I don’t exactly go around in public, exclaiming, “Hi! I’m Maddie. My dad died from cancer when I was only seven years old.”

I never tell people that my dad lost his battle with cancer because that’s not what happened. The truth is my dad died from cancer. Yes, my dad was definitely actively fighting cancer just as one would fight off a cold, but I don’t like to say that he was defeated by cancer.

Calling my dad the loser implies that he could still be alive today had he done something different over ten years ago when he was sick, but that’s sadly not the reality.  No matter what he did, his fate ultimately lay in the hands of the doctors treating him and the treatment administered to him. From the start, my dad never had a fair chance at overcoming the horrid disease.

It’s common knowledge that cancer is wickedly cruel, but we still struggle to accept that cancer is one of the things in life which has an outcome we have no control over. Frequently, we hear about the strength and heroism expressed by those with cancer, but solely do we actually hear about the reality of suffering from cancer. It’s uncomfortable to discuss, and rightfully so. 

Cancer is unpredictably brutal, and not only for the the afflicted. It’s physically, emotionally, and mentally draining on both the patient and their family, testing every ounce of strength. Cancer brings heart-wrenching emotions that can linger for years. Many years after the death of loved one due to cancer, grief will randomly strike while you’re lying in the bed late at night alone with your thoughts, leaving you struggling to breathe because you are crying so hard.

For me, cancer meant visiting my dad in the hospital after not seeing him for days but being too afraid to climb up on the bed to give him a hug. Cancer turned my favorite person in the world into a stranger whom I could barely recognize. At the age of seven, I refused to believe the frail, ghostly looking figure lying in the hospital bed a few feet away from where I stood was the same one who was giving me piggyback rides only months before. 

I have grown to hate it when people say that time heals all wounds. It doesn’t. At such a young age, I didn’t truly realize what the death of my dad would entail. I knew that he was gone forever, and I was never going to hear his voice or feel his touch ever again, but I wasn’t truly able to grasp the gravity of the whole situation until many years after his death. 

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more and more aware of things in my life that are different from most kids my age because of father’s death. Furthermore, I have become more aware of everything my dad will unfairly never get to experience.

Cancer robbed my father of the opportunity to watch his little girl grow up, go to high school, graduate, go to college, and even one day get married. I’ve thought about how I don’t have my dad to walk me down the aisle on my wedding day. For most girls, the thought will never cross their minds, and I hope it never does. 

It’s been ten years since my dad’s death, ten years since my mom became a widow who had to raise three kids on her own, and ten years since our lives were overturned completely. It’s said that everything happens for a reason, but I fail to find the rationale behind years of endless pain and suffering. 

I have good days where my mind and soul are at peace with the reality of my life. I also have bad days where the grief hits me in immense waves that overcome my body and I struggle to cope. But after everything that has happened to me, I know that I can go on as I’ve done for ten years now.  And I know that if the memory of my dad is all that I can have, then I’m determined never to lose it.