I had the privilege of meeting Lillian here in Hawaii at school. She is 1000% driven and cares about the world around her. When she was in high school, she created her own non-profit organization called "Fahodie for Friends" fighting against human trafficking in Africa. She continues to make it a big part of her life today, I am honored she was willing to tell me how much she loves her dad...
It’s been almost 5 years. My dad died on July 26, 2012. He was 55. We were going to a soccer tournament because I was scouting out some schools and places I wanted to play for soccer. We had a big game in California so we (my mom, dad, and I) road tripped it, stopping in Vegas for a night and stayed in my dad’s dream hotel, the Venetian. He had wanted to stay there for like his whole life. He wasn't feeling really well and was sweating a lot. In the middle of the night, he had taken himself to the emergency room because something was off. Apparently, they let him go. After he got back, he went to bed while we were still sleeping.
He usually gets up first at around 6 a.m. My mom woke up so excited that she was up before him, so she started to wake him up to flaunt it, but he didn’t move. He didn’t wake up. Then she bumped me to wake up to call the hotel emergency. Over the phone, they told me what to do. We had to pick him up and put him on his side. It was weird because he was breathing but it was automated breathing. He wasn’t using his lungs, but they were still working. The EMTs came to resuscitate him and couldn’t. They tried and tried in the ambulance and it didn’t work. At the hospital, they called us back and said he had passed away.
I’ve heard that it usually happens in people’s sleep. His heart got too big and gave out, commonly known as and “enlarged heart”. We later found out in an autopsy and there’s medicine that can help it. My dad just didn’t know. He used to be a bodybuilder, but he smoked sometimes and it did affect his heart. It’s weird because my grandpa smoked his whole life and he’s 97 and has had several heart attacks but he’s still here.
We went back to the hotel and they gave us a new room of course. It was just so weird to go to the hotel with him and leave without him. We ended up going home. We had some friends come and pick us up and drive us from Vegas to Utah. We didn’t drive back, they just drove for us all through the night and took us home.
It was really hard. For me, I was just in shock and it didn’t feel real. I know everyone's different when they grieve. Everyone was really concerned about me because I was “handling it too well”, which I thought was strange. Grieving, for me, was never full of tears. Everyone thought I needed to show more emotions. But that’s not how I grieve. Grief isn’t acting like things didn’t happen. I did cry and have those sad moments, but I just love remembering the good things about my dad.
Grieving is a process of healing from traumatic experiences. Tears are just proof that you’ve loved. I don’t think grief needs to be something to fill your life with despair, it shows you’ve loved someone so deeply. Tears of remembering and being grateful for everything they taught you can fill your heart with joy even though it’s so bad. I tried to fill myself with joy. I had a hard time thinking about the experience. People would say, “That must be so hard.”
I think I did run from it at first, but I’m just so grateful I get to say I got to spend a lot of time with him and learned from him, I think that’s my personal grief. It brings me a lot of peace and comfort. Grief looks different for everyone. People would tell me, “You’re running away from things.” I just don’t need to be stuck in my bed all day to be grieving. I also have a really strong testimony that this isn’t the end. I know I can invite opportunities to feel him close to me. I haven’t really felt that, but I think it’s my own fault. I think I need to listen harder. I’m not always good at listening. It’s been really frustrating to me. I know he’s there and it’s something I need to practice. Knowing that truth is something to live for, not something to crawl in a hole for. But you can never tell people how to feel.
What I miss most is having his advice, being able to call him and having that father figure. “Hey dad, I need help with this. Or just, “how are you today.” The everyday simple stuff. I miss that for sure. I don’t have any regrets. I think there are hard times in any relationship and I think that’s part of relationships. I would never change anything. Yeah it wasn’t perfect, we would get super annoyed with each other, but I just dont regret it because it’s normal.
I dread his birthday and Father’s Day for 2 reasons.
It reminds me that he’s not here and it’s annoying. It reopens a wound.
I feel like there’s a social pressure. Oh she didn’t post anything about her dad on Facebook or Instagram.
Every Father’s Day everyone says something to their father, and it has become a way that you care. For me, I have always felt that from my friends and family. There’s this expectation to make it so thoughtful and expressive to show how much you loved him or it looks like you don’t care. I’m a very introverted and sometimes I just want to cry and talk to my husband and no one else. I don’t need to post it. It just reminds me more that he’s not here.
The biggest comfort is talking to my husband. Having someone to confide in and talk about the positive happy things makes me feel a lot better. This year, it would have been my Dad's 60th birthday. Days like that are always difficult. They usually consists of a lot of tears and specifically that day, this girl had a little melt down in the grocery store. To calm the tears I spent time recalling great memories and reminding myself that the mourning comes because of the evident love. Celebrating the life of my dad that day with a birthday cake (German chocolate his favorite) and 60 memories/ things I am grateful for about having him as my dad. Definitely the best rockstar of a father anyone could ask for.
How can I better help others?
I have been in that situation, a good friend lost her dad not long ago. You would think I know what to say and completely understand, but I get really nervous and I don’t know what to say because everyone grieves differently. I feel more shy than I would have anticipated. I can empathize more, but I didn’t know exactly how she feels. She knew her dad was dying and mine was really abrupt and unexpected. Not that one is better or worse, but it’s a different process. I would like to say I’m good at supporting them, but I get hesitant and nervous. It brings bad feelings for me. I’d like to say that I just do it, but I don’t because maybe it’s still hard for me.
Losing a parent is one of the hardest things that will happen to you in life. Losing anyone is hard, but when it’s a parent, you all of a sudden don’t have them. Out of nowhere, he wasn’t physically present. It’s so weird for my mom to be a widow and be single. You hear about growing up with a single mom, but when you’ve never had that and all of a sudden you have it, it just doesn’t feel real. It wasn’t your choice, it wasn’t under your control. If we would have caught it sooner, why didn’t he warn us, you hear stories like that right? It makes you wonder. When someone s so present in your life and they are just gone. You have to communicate with them differently and it’s a really hard experience. Sometimes you feel like you have to be strong and you want to be supportive of your family. My family and I don’t talk about it. It’s something we sweep under the rug but I think everyone still really hurts from it and it’s really difficult. I wish it was a little bit more open. It’s a hard thing to talk about you know?
I didn’t like that I was expected to be sad. A few people said I was too happy. I’m sorry I’m not laying around. I handled it the way I could. I hated when people would say, “Oh man, that’s hard.” Well yeah. “I know how you feel.” No you don’t, but that’s ok. I think the best thing people could do was just act normal and hang out with me. Ask me, “How’s your day?” or “what’s going on in life?” Not avoiding it, but not bringing it up every 5 seconds. It’s a wound that’s healing.
All my friends disappeared, they didn’t know how to respond to me, they stopped talking to me. I was literally so lonely. It’s because they didn’t know how to talk to me. For the first few years I really didn’t have any friends. I would say, if you have a friend who is grieving, just be a friend, be real with them, and don’t beat around the bush. Nobody really knows how to respond, it’s ok, but you shouldn’t disappear because you don’t know what to do even if it means talking about cheese for 4 hours instead of talking about what happened. You know? I got awkward too, but it’s not excuse to not do anything. I still don’t know what to say to my friends who lost someone too. Sometimes you just gotta sit on the couch and just listen.
I think my most favorite thing about my dad is how extremely supportive he was. I can count on just one hand how many of my soccer games he missed in all of the 12 years I played. He always believed in me. He was very ambitious, good with people, and got stuff done. He cared about other people’s lives and did his best to be someone’s friend. I think I got that attitude from him and I’m so grateful for that, I love that I carry those parts of him with me. My dad is really funny. Also, I don’t say he “was”. Physically he's not here, but he’s still a person and his existence matters. It’s easier for me to say that he “is”, because my dad really ‘is’.
He is an all-around awesome dad. He made himself involved in my life in such a positive way, while caring for and loving me so I always knew it. I know not everyone has that experience. Being adopted and not his biological daughter, I always felt like I was his real daughter. He is an incredible person. Great example. Loves his family. Kind hearted. Obviously he had his moments, fun to be around.
He loved riding horses, we had lots of horses. He taught my brother roping. I was super sporty, so his soccer girl. He never forced me to like horses, because they weren’t my favorite. He would encourage me to follow my own dreams and help me be the best I could be. He loved supporting his kids. I feel like he was always there in such a good way. He worked from home and had the ability to.
He started his own business called Golden West. They created a chemical they would sell to coal mines to preserve coal mines in the winter so it would be able to be shipped across the world. He would sell to big coal mines in Chile and Wyoming. He did awesome starting his own business. He is smart, successful and we were always well taken care of. Because he worked from home, in the mornings, I would wake up and he could drop me off at school and able to be a big part of our lives. He was a part of everything and I love that.
My dad cherished moments in our relationship and he would repeat those stories which was fun. When I was first adopted, when I was three, there was a story about me sleeping on his chest one night. Apparently I peed on him and he would always go back to that, saying he loved me enough to let me pee on him. Haha.
My dad would always say. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” And that I’m “the beholden.” We had cute little daddy daughter things we would say to each other. My favorite memories are spending a lot of time with him in soccer when he would take me to all of my games. We had 30 minutes to a couple hours of quality time together. Sometimes it was talking, sometimes it was the music we would listen to, or just being there together. It didn’t matter, we still had time together. I think those would be his favorite memories if I could ask him.
I remember one time, he loved to tease us. I was getting ready to do my drivers test and I took it and passed. But I ended up coming home and telling my dad I didn’t pass, “Shoot, I knew this would happen. Why didn’t you ask us for more help?” He said I could have spent more time and practiced more. He was being dead serious and thought I would fail and even anticipated me failing. I have it all on video. I obviously told him I didn’t, but it was hilarious.
We had this one family tradition, we would always make a Christmas dish called “pasta kinas.” It’s a pasta dish with meat, basically. It comes from my dad’s side of the family, my dad’s parents used to make it every Christmas, and my dad was the only child that still kept the tradition alive. It was always so fun to make the pasta together and the special recipe for the meat. It takes a whole family to get it done and it’s so incredible and we always looked forward to it.
I always remember my dad being really loud. He was naturally really loud just talking, so we would always tease him. For a while, he had a harder time hearing, and he would pull his ear forward to hear us. So we would always pretend we couldn't hear him either.