5 Heartbreaking Lessons I Learned from Losing My Father During Pandemic

I’ll never look at life the same way ever again.

It’s 3 pm in Vancouver when I got a call from my brother that my father has passed away. Although he’s my stepfather, we’ve built a strong connection, and he’s the only one in the house that fully supports my dreams and ambitions.

My heart broke as I heard the news. I was stuck somewhere in North America while my family back home in Indonesia had to deal with all of that. I felt sad, hopeless, and mentally weak.

I know how much he wanted to live longer, and I remember all the plans he said a couple of months back before the lung cancer ate him alive.

The trouble is you think you have time. — Gautama Buddha

If you’ve been losing a family member, especially during this pandemic, you’ll know how much it hurts. It feels harder due to the travel restrictions, and there’ll always be some family members that can’t attend the funeral. And this is what happened to me.

I realize many essential things in life that I overlooked and didn’t think matter by losing him.

From my career, financial life to the relationship that I’m currently in, his death has changed me completely.

1. Relationships first, then the money

For as long as I remember, my father always put work above everything else.

He thought money is the primary source of happiness. This approach resulted in him stressed out about our financial life; no matter how hard he worked, it seemed never enough.

When he passed away, none of his biological kids came because they had too complicated issues around money. I saw his lack of deep emotional bonding with his kids and has no loving, stable relationship with my mother. And it has made me realize to work on my own relationship harder than ever.

I don’t want to get caught up in chasing the money activity because it leaves me no time for my partner.

Because at the end of the day, money won’t give you happiness and nothing beats the feeling of having someone beside you through thick and thin. It’s more precious than money.

2. Never wait for the right time to do something

This is a piece of advice that I realized even before my father passed away. He always wanted to do certain things for so long but didn’t do it just because he thought, “the time isn’t right yet.”

I remember one time he told me that it would be nice to go to Bali for a couple of days and relax on the beach since he’s never been there. But work always got in the way, and before he knew it, he ran out of time.

Life is unpredictable, and the older I get, the more I realize that there’s no such a thing as the “right” time. If we wait and wait and wait for the right time to come, we’d end up not doing it at all.

We also need to remember that we only have one shot in this life, and sometimes, when we spent too much thinking and planning about it, without taking real action, that will only lead to nowhere.

Now, whenever I feel like I procrastinate the things that have been on my mind for too long, I give myself a hard reminder to start moving and working on it. Otherwise, I’d regret it later.

As Napoleon Hill said,

“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.”

3. Manage your money well

I’d say my family isn’t the best when it comes to managing money. It’s only when my father passed away that we started saving religiously. It hit my mother how much we needed savings in the first place.

Medical expenses are so expensive here, especially when it comes to chronic diseases such as cancer. Sadly, my father didn’t have any savings even to get him into treatment when he was sick.

This is heart-breaking because all we have are assets. And in case you don’t know yet, selling land isn’t as easy as selling candy, especially when you live in a small and remote area somewhere in Indonesia.

So from this experience, my family now learns how important it is to manage our money well and have an emergency fund if something terrible happens.

4. Take your health seriously

As a heavy smoker and drank too much coffee in a day, my father knew he didn’t take care of himself well. However, he was pretty stubborn, and nothing my mother said was ever going to change his mind about his lifestyle.

After years of consuming tobacco nonstop, his lungs couldn’t take it anymore, and when cancer hit, it was too late to fix as it’s already in the 4th stage.

As shocking as this news to us last year, we somehow knew it was coming. Not only he smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, but he also barely ate food and depended on the coffee to fill his stomach.

Everyone knows this is an extreme way to live your life, but it’s real. My father lived all his life that way — at least until the last eight months when he was sick.

“Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos- the trees, the clouds, everything.” — Thich Nhat Hanh

Most of us take life for granted and think that we push it through, our body will stay put. But it won’t.

So if you haven’t taken your health seriously, I highly recommend you starting now as you don’t know how many years you have left. While you are still alive, you want to make sure that you are strong and healthy to enjoy life fully.

5. Do the work that fulfills you

My father never cared whether the job was the one he wanted to do or whether it had something to do with his goal or not; he only cared about the money.

As long as it makes money, he’d take it all. I sometimes saw him feeling so stressed and not happy in the job, but he thought he needed the money, so it was impossible to leave.

But it always happened to every job even though our family knew he did a great job already.

Now that I’m close to 27 years old, I could feel drained and exhausted in a job. And getting more raises is not going to fix it. Though I admit having more money gives you more security and helps you solve some life problems, I realized I don’t want to work for the money.

There has to be satisfaction in doing the job, or if I can’t get it inside the work, then I have to look outside of it, such as building a new craft that I’m really into.

The Takeaways

Here are some takeaways for you in case you miss my point above:

• Money does help you solve the problem but don’t be too caught up with it. Put your relationships first because they are the ones that can make your life more meaningful and happier.
• If you have a big goal in mind: bungee jumping, traveling the world, moving to a more exciting job, whatever it is, be sure to do it as early as you can. Rather than just sitting at home and overthinking it. The right time will never come, and regrets feel more painful than the failures you might get from those goals.
• An emergency fund is as important as collecting money to buy your first house. Also, learning how to manage your money is a skill that most people underestimate. So make sure you master it because it’ll help you a lot in the long run.
• Bad habits such as; smoking, consuming too much sugar or caffeine will only damage your body. It might feel good in the short term and could be a quick fix to release your stress, but it’ll catch up with you at some point. Be more mindful about what you are doing to your body daily, and be sure to take care of your health seriously.
• While you need money to survive and live well, you don’t have to sell your soul just for the money. There are some ways you can do to get a job that can also align with your life goals. If you can’t find it inside your job, then consider looking for another hobby outside work. This will help you avoid focusing too much on chasing money and ignore your own goals and interests.