Despite spending his younger years masquerading as one, my dad never struck me as a man’s man. His youth was a blend of rugby, booze and red meat that would impress the most fervent bloke. But my suspicion — that this concealed his authentic self — was strengthened when he met his second wife, stopped drinking altogether and took up a vegetarian diet. An insurance underwriter turned plasterer, his days were now spent surfing and Pilates in the rural Devon village where he’d relocated rather than having lunchtime pints in a City pub.
Dad largely kept his emotions private in a manner you might expect of a man of his generation. Until much later in his life I rarely, if ever, saw him cry. His impassive approach came in part from his parents: both physically disabled, they were relentlessly positive in the face of adversity. If they didn’t express their emotions, why should he? True to form, I also spent my twenties determined to engage with the world on the terms it expected of me. Ashamed of how I expressed myself, I tried to suppress my instinct to be an emotional open book and adopt a tougher, more stoic demeanour. It took a catalyst for Dad and me to shed our pretences. I just wish mine hadn’t materialised in such a devastating fashion.
I knew Dad, 56, had been having health issues and, most concerningly, trouble swallowing. He’d had tests, including one that doctors said showed some inflammation but otherwise — and I will never forget these words — “nothing sinister”. Dad joked he was down to his “fighting weight” and told me to enjoy my honeymoon in Mexico.
A biopsy had been taken as a precaution. When the morning of the results arrived, I checked my phone, wondering why it was taking so long. Thirty minutes passed. Then an hour. We met a friend for breakfast. The crystal waters of Lake Bacalar teemed with backpackers; a stark backdrop for what was to come.
I knew as soon as my phone started ringing. Numb, I slipped from the table and locked myself in the bathroom. My dad, in a voice I’d heard only once when he told me his mum had died, rushed out the words no son wants to hear: “It’s cancer, mate.” I left the restaurant and walked to the next street before I fell to the floor, inconsolable. It was April 2024.
We made it through the next couple of months travelling only by assuring ourselves that it might well be cancer, but there was the possibility of surgery, advancements in treatment. Dad was extremely fit, having completed multiple Ironmans. Decades of stubborn dedication to his health surely had to count for something? That falsehood revealed itself when, meeting us at the airport, my mum and sister disclosed the full extent of Dad’s diagnosis: the cancer was terminal. I googled the survival rate of stage 4 oesophageal cancer before putting my phone back in my pocket in despair.
We were warned of the fallibility of prognoses but fixated on the year the doctors had given him. We took it to be a worst case scenario; it turned out to be an optimistic estimate. We immediately relocated to Devon, spending each day with Dad. For the first few weeks we stole pockets of genuine joy. We shared truly special moments, had conversations I never thought we would. I engaged with Dad as a true peer, us wondering together with a strange sense of awe how we’d wound up here.
But then things changed. From watching Dad monitor marginal gains to achieve his best sporting output, we were now tracking every metric ourselves — his calories, weight, breathing — praying his heart wouldn’t give way to clotting caused by the cancer. The chemo sent shocks through his head when he ate. He had hiccups he couldn’t shake; the Cancer Research UK page said they could last for a month or more. We tracked his medication, watching in horror as the reality dawned on us that not only were we unable to take away the pain, the treatment from his medical team wasn’t working either. I obsessed over the impact of sugar on cancer cells, as if a tweak to his diet could save him. In spending hours synthesising the data, I realised I was distracting myself from the naked truth: my dad was dying in front of me.
We dedicated our energy to getting Dad into a hospice, a place we never thought we’d be relieved to see him. The hospice staff were extraordinarily compassionate, caring for him with dignity and helping him marry his partner of 20 years. Their grip on the situation afforded some calm and a window for humour opened again: when we checked Dad’s breathing after his lips had turned blue and he hadn’t said anything for a while, he quietly piped up: “I’m not dead yet.” He suggested there’d be no need for chemo now he’d started Headspace’s Coping with Cancer course, received the prayers of our nan, and heard that British Airways had sent him their best wishes when we’d hurriedly rearranged our flights.
And then, less than two weeks after we arrived at the hospice, he was gone. After Dad died, I slowly reintroduced myself to the world, seeking out people who’d had similar experiences. Soon I noticed something stark: when I spoke with other men, I struggled to connect with how many reacted to their grief. One friend told me he steered clear of all conversation about how he was feeling, taking any opportunity to snatch his thoughts away from the painful memories; grief had entrenched the avoidant relationship he had with his emotions, not changed it. Another tried to distract himself too. He feared that if he shared his story with others it might burden them — a concern that was realised when his friends lacked the vocabulary to respond when he opened up. For a few I spoke with it was clear that loss was not a topic on which to dwell in conversation at all; I wondered at what cost.
For me, separating myself from the emotion just exacerbated the grief, and conversations about it were the only ones I could manage. So I ran directly at it, shouting to anyone who would listen how I felt now the man I loved most in the world was no longer here. As time unfolded I had a seismic shift of perspective, a kind of weird freedom from self-imposed constraints. I yearned not for less grief, but more of it, throwing myself into grief counselling. I hungrily read Nick Cave’s memoir, written after he lost two of his sons, resonating with his take on the urgency and reckless nature of grief. I devoured the raw brutality of Rob Delaney’s account of losing his young son to brain cancer and spoke about it to anyone who would listen. They convinced me of the virtue of an open discourse when grief is something we will all experience, and of the tribute it pays to those you’ve lost.
And it helped me to shake the guilt of being open. I started writing about my experiences, and instead of worrying how it might kill the vibe at a party, I led with what happened to Dad. More often than not people would offer a story of their own in return and I began to realise that my experience wasn’t a burden — it was an opportunity to connect. But my clarity came with a sense of guilt: “Now Dad has died I feel liberated from societal expectations of masculinity” isn’t quite the sentiment I’d envisaged. It also brought sadness: couldn’t I have shed the façade a little sooner?
Despite how we sought to present ourselves publicly, Dad and I couldn’t help but express our feelings to one another in private. We had long composed letters by hand, a process that elevated our exchanges and meant that, before it was too late, I’d already told him he was the best dad I could have hoped for. He wrote to me on my 18th and 21st birthdays; I wrote to him on my wedding day, a day he’d declared as one of the best of his life to anyone who would listen. When I was a child he’d read to me as I fell asleep; in the hospice I read to him as he slept for the final time. And at his funeral I met friend after friend who knew details of my life he’d taken pride in sharing.
There is no process to resolve the ravages of grief — it is a dismantling experience and, if it is happening to you, being kind to yourself is half the battle. But being open has driven enriching conversation, often with other men, that has helped me to navigate the grief. My most effective coping method? Shedding any expectations of the man I am supposed to be. It has been a small comfort amid the reality that Dad is gone for ever.
