Like I said before we get into the tea of my pregnancy… we have to talk about some of those detours. And one of the biggest detours I’ve ever faced was losing my father to stage 4 cancer. Thankfully, I had my tribe — my friends, my family, and a THERAPIST who held space for me in ways I didn’t even know I needed.

Quick sidenote: I actually started therapy earlier that year, not because anything traumatic was happening, but because I finally realized I needed support navigating my anxiety, my hesitations in life, and honestly… my patterns in love. Therapy helped me understand why I kept running into flings and situationships when deep down all I wanted was real partnership. It also help me with navigation of friendships and setting boundaries with my family. 

Therapy doesn’t have to be a response to hardship.You can start therapy even when everything feels phenomenal — because sometimes that’s when you finally have the space to understand yourself on a deeper level.



Now back to the detour.

My dad called me one day, nothing unusual really, but the call felt different. He sounded content in a way that made my stomach drop. He joked around like he always did, but beneath it I could hear what he wasn’t saying. He was simply talking about how tired he was with treatments. I didn’t put it together until later, but that call might’ve been his way of saying goodbye.

A couple weeks passed before my uncle called, urging me to convince my dad to keep trying chemo and a possible trial. I said I would… but in my heart I knew my father was tired. I knew he had made peace with his fate. So I honored that and didn’t push him.

Then came another call probably a week later: my dad wasn’t doing well. Still, a part of me didn’t take the call too seriously. Maybe because our relationship was always complicated — full of love, but also full of resentment I had only recently worked through. So, I sort of didn’t care, if I am being honest. My uncle informed me that he was taking my father to the hospital and I should come up there to visit. My thoughts were “hmm Maybe.” But I went the next day because I couldn’t shake the feeling I had during that call with my father; that quiet knowing deep in my chest that his time here was nearing its end.

When I went to the hospital… It shattered me. I didn’t recognize him. Cancer had taken so much from him, even his coherence. I took FMLA(time off of work) and stayed by his side through the hospital and then the hospice process. Making overwhelming decisions alongside my uncles because I was his only child which meant I had power of attorney. While watching him decline took a toll on me, to the point I was self medicating and “crashing out”. I had to take step back for my own mental health. 

And on the day I finally gathered the strength to visit again, I walked in and he looked so peaceful. Even though he couldn’t really speak, he seemed so eager to tell me something. Every time he tried to form the words, all that came out was, “Deborah.” Just my name…. So I held his hand, stayed right there with him, and told him, “I’m here. I love you too.” That seemed to bring him peace. He just looked at me and smiled. 

I sat with him for two hours like that — just presence, love, and unspoken words — before he crossed over right before my eyes. 

That was the biggest detour of my year — navigating the heartbreak, the childhood wounds, the healing, the anger, the forgiveness, and the gratitude for the good memories too. It was all tangled together, and I had to feel every bit of it.

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