and I'd see him again and when I see him again

he won't be in pain anymore.

And he won't be weak.

When My Parent Passed Away

I was six years old when my mom passed away.

My mom died when I was 17, she was sick.

She had cancer the majority of my childhood.

My dad was sick for as long as I can remember.

When I was born he was just recently diagnosed

with multiple sclerosis.

You know, I went and talked to my mom and I,

you know, I sat down next to her bed and I told her,

I said, "This is what the doctors have told us."

They said there might be a solution, but we might have to,

you know, go across the country to this doctor's place

to try it out.

And she just looked at me and she's like, "No more."

I can't.

My father who was young and didn't smoke

came down with pancreatic cancer and within less than

six months he had passed away.

My father died first.

He had arterial sclerotic heart disease so he had a

massive heart attack.

And then my mother, she died about five months later

and she just had, like, a sudden cardiac arrest and I was

on the phone with her when it happened, but I didn't know

that she had died.

We always had the thing in our family when you,

you know, love you, love you more.

I believe it was me to him, "Love ya."

And then on my way out the door I heard, "Love you more."

And that was the last thing he ever said to me.

And he was throwing up due to the chemo therapy.

I was young and I walked past it and I recoiled and said

gross and ran away.

Ever since then, that's just replayed in my head

since childhood.

There were so many unknowns happening.

Like, I felt that it was my fault, then I realized

it wasn't my fault.

I remember walking out of the funeral home

holding the casket and I grabbed my little brother

and I hugged him, I said, "I promise you everything's

"gonna be okay, I'm gonna make sure of it.

"Everything's gonna be fine."

And I hope I did the right thing.

I'm hoping that I was able to do what, at least half

my mother was able to do for me.

It was mother's day and everyone was, like,

crocheting these like things for their mom and I was the only

kid in class that, like, didn't.

So then I just did it for my grandma which sounds weird.

So, yeah, that's when

I kind of understood that, like,

that everyone else kind of had this thing and I didn't.

You never really lose certain memories or certain parts

of their personality and I, to this day, will be watching

a movie that I watched with him several times or a TV show

that I watched several times with him and I can still hear

the parts where he laughed.

That void is always gonna be there and it's a part of

who I am today, but it doesn't have to pull me in,

it doesn't have to take over me.

And it's something that I work on all the time.

I had a therapist for the first six months after it

happened 'cause it helps to talk to someone without bias.

I go to therapy.

Yeah, I go to therapy because this isn't an issue that's

just gonna, like, go away.

You are going to deal with the loss of your parents

for years.

If there's somebody that you care about,

you need to let them know.

And just don't waste time cause the biggest things

you learn because you can be taken today, tomorrow,

in 50 years, you don't know.

I learned a lot in those 16 years and I, like,

cherish those memories.

I always tell my friends, you know, cherish your parents.

You never know when they're gonna go.

Cherish the time you had about (with them) and share that

with people because everyone's in it together and we all

are going through the same thing.

We are in a struggle together and together we become stronger.