[dingo454]

I lost my cat in my 20ies, which died of old age. I wasn't living with my parents anymore for years when this happened. I still sometimes weep when I think about it, decades later.

My father got cancer and lived with it for about 7 years before dying. Our relationship wasn't exactly close. When he was in the last weeks, I got so used to the hospitals and health issues that everything seemed so normal to me. I knew exactly what was eventually going to happen though. It only hit me two days before he died, and it was with the brutality of an instantaneous train-wreck.

You could have told me everything, exactly as I wrote it down now, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have made a difference.