Blog 13: My Dad, Again

If you’ve been keeping up with this series, I hope you’ve enjoyed it so far. If this is your first time reading, welcome—this series is all about the people and moments that have shaped me into the person I am today.

Today, I’m writing about someone I’ve already talked about before: my dad. I know I could write about so many other people who have influenced my life, but the truth is, so much of who I am is because of him. He shaped me in ways I’m still uncovering, and even though he’s been gone for years, I find myself learning from him every day. If you haven’t read my first blog, I’d recommend checking it out—it has a lot of important context that will help in understanding this post.

When I was in seventh grade, I lost my dad unexpectedly to cancer. You might be thinking, If he had cancer, how was it unexpected? But to me, it was. Throughout the time he was sick, it never once occurred to me that he could actually die. I had never experienced a loss like that before, and he was my dad—so in my twelve-year-old mind, that just wasn’t a possibility. The idea of a world without him didn’t exist for me, until suddenly, I was living in it.

There’s something about losing someone so suddenly that leaves you in a constant state of disbelief. It took a long time for me to process that he was really gone. In some ways, I still struggle with it. But in those first few months, the fear of forgetting him became overwhelming. I realized we didn’t have many pictures together—he wasn’t a fan of taking them, so the few we did have were scattered and sparse. That thought sent me into a panic. What if I forget what he looked like? What if I forget the sound of his voice?

Looking back now, I know that wasn’t something I could ever truly forget, but grief has a way of making even the most irrational fears feel real. That fear of losing pieces of him is what made me fall in love with photography.

In high school, I joined the journalism program, where I learned how to properly use a camera and document moments in a meaningful way. I became that friend—the one always pulling out their phone to take a picture, capturing every moment, big or small. And then, inevitably, the friend who had to start paying for extra iCloud storage because I couldn’t bring myself to delete anything.

But pictures weren’t the only thing I worried about forgetting. I was only twelve when my dad died, and so many of the memories I do have of him feel distant, blurred by time. By the time I was a senior in high school, I decided I wasn’t going to let that happen again. I picked up a journal and made a promise to myself: every day, I would write down what happened. Big events, small moments, conversations, feelings—anything I wanted to remember.

At first, it felt like a way to hold onto things, to prevent time from stealing more than it already had. But over time, journaling became something more. It became a way for me to slow down, to process my days, to appreciate even the most seemingly insignificant moments. And in a way, it made me feel closer to my dad.

Grief is strange like that. It finds its way into your life in the smallest, most unexpected ways. Sometimes, it’s hearing My Girl by The Temptations play randomly in a cafe and feeling like he’s saying hi. Other times, it’s laughing at a joke I know he would have found hilarious. It’s in the little things, the things that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else, but mean everything to me.

For example, I’ve never dyed my hair. It’s long, brown, with natural highlights—just like his. And I can’t bring myself to change it. It sounds silly, but it’s the one part of me that really physically resembles him, and the idea of altering it feels like I’d be letting go of a connection I can’t afford to lose.

And then there’s my drive—especially when it comes to academics. Since my sophomore year of high school, I’ve taken summer courses every semester. It helped me become valedictorian, graduate a year early from UNC, and get into a master’s program. But if I’m being honest, a lot of that drive comes from the fact that I’ll never get to hear him say, “I’m proud of you” again.

So I push myself to my limits, because if he were still here, I want to believe he would be proud. I want to believe that every accomplishment, every milestone, would make him smile. Losing him so young made me realize just how uncertain life is, and I don’t want to waste any of it.

Grief is complicated. It doesn’t go away—it just changes shape. It lingers in the background, sometimes soft, sometimes sharp, always present. There are days when it’s quiet, when I can go about my life without feeling its weight too heavily. And then there are days when it hits me out of nowhere—when I see a father and daughter together and feel an ache so deep I can’t put it into words.

I could talk for hours about the ways grief sneaks into my life, how I still miss him constantly, how there will always be a space in my life that belongs to him.

But as I keep moving forward, I try to live in a way that I know would make him proud. The truth is, I could have done anything, and he would have been proud of me. But losing him at such a young age taught me something important: nothing in life is guaranteed. So I’m making the most of every moment.

And at the end of the day, that’s what I hope to carry forward. Not just the grief, but the love. Not just the loss, but the lessons.

Thank you, Dad, for everything.