Chloe’s story

I thought I knew grief. I thought that since I’d done it before, I knew what to expect. My auntie died  back in 2021 following a 5 year battle with cancer. We knew it was terminal, we knew this day  would come, but when it did, it came quickly. I don’t really remember much of the next few weeks.  At the time, I thought that my brain had done this to protect me, blurred everything out to numb the  pain. It didn’t do this for my dad. 

My dad died at home of a cardiac arrest in April 2025. I remember that day so clearly. I was on the  phone to my mom and my dad was resting in bed. She hung up to go and check on him, saying that  she heard a bang.

Over the next hour, I received text updates from my mom, telling me that an  ambulance crew had arrived, that they were working on him, that I should call my boyfriend and get  him to come round to my house. He was with me when my mom rang to say that he’d gone, that she  was with my dad, holding his hand and that he looked peaceful. 

I’m still haunted by memories of that day. My mom told me a few days later that she’d had to do  CPR until the ambulance crew arrived, that they tried to bring him back for 45 minutes before  calling it. I had dreams about it, imagining what it would have been like in that room, what my  mom would have sounded like on the phone to 999, what my dad would have looked like. Was he in  pain? Did he know what was happening, could he hear my mom panicking and know how much she  loved him? 

My mom was traumatised. She felt like she’d failed because CPR hadn’t worked. I remembered  something that I’d been told on a first-aid course, that CPR is unsuccessful most of the time.  Television paints a picture that chest compressions are easy to do, rather than exhausting, that they  always work, that the patient makes it out of them unscathed. They’re only successful about 10% of  the time.

As my dad died at home, we had to wait for the coroner report before we could get the death  certificate. This left us in limbo for 10 days - we couldn’t begin to plan the funeral because we  couldn’t get access to his bank accounts to see what (if any) money he’d left behind. We spent our  days watching Netflix, forcing ourselves to eat, being visited by family and friends who didn’t  know what to say, and who we couldn’t give any answers to either. Our living room resembled a  florist. 

We had the funeral 5 weeks later. We could only afford a direct cremation with a small memorial  service, which I still feel guilt about now. His wake was at his local football club, which was nice.  And then it was done. People told us that it would be easier once the funeral was done. I found it  harder. It started to sink in, that this was reality now, that I now had to face life without my dad, this  wasn’t a nightmare. 

I work as a visiting music teacher so I predominantly work alone, only seeing colleagues and my  line manager twice a week. Most of the schools I visited had no idea what had happened, I just  carried on like normal. Normal. Like that was possible. I wasn’t entitled to bereavement leave as  I’m on a zero-hours contract. My line manager did his best to direct me to support. So much of my  time was spent alone in my car, driving between schools, or surrounded by people who didn’t know.  Everything felt so trivial after what I had been through. 

My boyfriend has been amazing. It breaks my heart that he never got to meet my dad - we’d only  been together a few months when he passed. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve cried in  public, especially in those early days. White feathers, robins, grandparents with their grandchildren,  anything with dad written on it. Whenever I see an ambulance with blue lights, I imagine it racing  to my dad. Whenever I see a private ambulance, I imagine my dad inside it.

My friend got married  last month, only a few days after the first anniversary of my dad’s death. It hurts to know that my dad won’t walk me down the aisle, that he won’t give an embarrassing speech. My mom will do  that instead. 

I’m better now - better at holding it together, better at pretending I’m ok. A part of me feels sad all  of the time, and I think it always will. I think about him all of the time, even though I don’t cry as  much. Things that happen in my day, that I wish I could tell him about. What advice he’d give me. I  can hear what his voice would sound like, telling me not to worry, to cheer up. At the start, I wanted  to scream when people told me that he’d always be with me. “Of course he won’t, he’s dead,” I  wanted to tell them. I think I get it now. I find the memories of him comforting, rather than soul  destroying. I tell my boyfriend about him and I’ll tell my children about him one day. I have to  believe that wherever he is now, he knows what I’m doing and that I love him.