I think what I loved most about my dad was his sense of humor and how he loved me. Growing up, my mother worked a lot as a nurse in our local hospital, so most of the time it was just my younger sister and me with my dad. He would always take us to do fun things and make memories together. He'd take us to the park, bowling, and pretty much anywhere we wanted to go (within reason) on the weekends. My dad was my rock emotionally and physically. Whenever I had something going on I could always talk to him about it and he would give me the best advice that he possibly could at the time. He could also always make me laugh and make any dull moment better. He had such a knack for dad jokes and only he could make them funny for me. When it comes to the cancer, my dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon cancer in 2022, after beating a lower stage back in 2018. This time around it hit him hard. He wasn't the same person after this time. My father who would take us around anywhere we wanted to go, was no longer able to leave the house for more than 30 minutes without getting exhausted and needing to rest. This took everything out of him. Fast forward to May of 2024, I graduated from a community college and he wasn't able to make it out to see me graduate, which I took very harshly because this would be the last graduation that he would've been able to attend for any of his children. The doctors gave him 15 months with their original diagnosis, but like my father would do, he made it well after that and passed in September of 2024. Even though I am thankful that I was able to have more time with him than expected, it still was not enough time in the slightest. I have had a hard time with this and only being 20, I'm supposed to have him to see me graduate my bachelors degree, to walk me down the aisle, to see me start life, but now I won't ever have the chance for that. Losing him to cancer was a gradual shift, but seeing the strongest person that you've had in your life change from that to someone who struggles to make sentences in such a short span of time has truly changed me and I never wish that on anyone. I am still trying to navigate life with this new reality and I hope to find peace and closure with it somewhere down the road.

The family member that I lost was my father. He passed away from colon cancer in September 2024. This experience shattered everything I knew and I had to pick myself back up again and keep focusing on life. Prior to this, I had lost my brother in 2019, due to complications with a kidney transplant and I was 15 at the time. With it not even being 5 years after my brother passed, this was a very dark time for me and my family. My whole life family has been everything. It was always my parents and my siblings and nothing could take us apart from each other growing up. I never expected to lose my father at freshly 20 years old, but this has become my new reality. Since his passing, I don't think I've truly been able to fully grieve. Being that he passed in the middle of my fall semester, I didn't have time to sit with it and process it. I went straight back into my classes because that is where my focus needed to be. Here we are in the start of March and I still have moments of longing for him and missing him, which I know is normal especially with how recent it was, but it doesn't make it any less hard. On a different outlook, I think this experience has made me grateful for the moments and memories that I have with people in my life. We never truly know what can happen and when someone's last moments are, so it's important to cherish every minute like it's the last. My father was my rock. He was the one person that I could go to with any of my problems and he would give me the best advice that he could, but now I don't have that. I don't have my father to see me graduate college, walk me down the aisle at my wedding, or get to see me grow up. These have been the hardest things to fully realize and I know it'll be tough when those events take place. In all of this, I am grateful for my mother. After my father passed, she took on a very big role. As my brother left behind a daughter and my little sister is still in high school, she took on a big caretaker role as well as working to provide for them financially. She has shown me strength and I think that is the main reason why I can keep pushing along through this.