March 31, 2011 was just an ordinary school day for me, until I received the news that my father Joseph Ciccarone had a stroke.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t even know what a stroke was or how serious the situation was until I arrived at the hospital. <\/span><\/p>\n Upon arriving at the hospital, I began preparing myself for the worst. When I saw him he was unconscious lying in a hospital bed. <\/span><\/p>\n I squeezed his hand as hard as I could, gave him kisses, and talked his ear off about my day and how he needed to wake up. <\/span><\/p>\n He squeezed my hand back but never regained consciousness.<\/span><\/p>\n The doctors operated on him that night, but it was unsuccessful. The next morning I had to say goodbye. <\/span><\/p>\n Throughout my childhood, I have seen my grandparents pass, so the feeling of someone leaving this life was familiar to me.<\/span><\/p>\n However, losing my father was on a completely different level. <\/span><\/p>\n As I left the hospital, I started to fill my head with thoughts, unintentional thoughts about all the major events my dad would miss.<\/span><\/p>\n He was never going to see me graduate high school\/college, meet the love of my life and walk me down the aisle, or ever see any grandchildren. <\/span><\/p>\n I stopped thinking these thoughts, because I know I needed to live in the now. <\/span><\/p>\n This is important while you are grieving, because your thoughts can haunt you and hurt you everyday that you keep thinking about things you no longer have control of. <\/span><\/p>\n There was no way for me to manage the situation. The end result was always going to be my dad isn\u2019t here anymore, and he\u2019s not coming back. <\/span><\/p>\n This is a cold way to think about it, but its true. <\/span><\/p>\n My dad was my everything, and I knew he wouldn\u2019t want me living life miserable regardless of the circumstances. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We are now in the year 2015, four years after my dad passed, and I can say that I am happy and living my life to the fullest, because that is what my dad would want me to do.<\/span><\/p>\n My advice for anyone who has just recently lost a loved one is to keep your chin up. <\/span><\/p>\n It is okay to cry, and smile because you are here in this life. <\/span><\/p>\n The grieving never ends, when you have a loved one who has passed the sadness comes in waves sometimes unexpectedly, and usually during the holidays. <\/span><\/p>\n Take these waves of emotion and embrace them. Don\u2019t try to fight it. <\/span><\/p>\n There really is no getting rid of the sad feeling that you are missing something, you are always going to remember that special person you lost. <\/span><\/p>\n You\u2019re not meant to forget your loved ones. Don\u2019t be afraid to talk about them even though they are no longer living. <\/span><\/p>\n Honor them, tell their stories, laugh about them, cry about them, and the best thing you can do for yourself is to appreciate life, now that you see how easily it can be taken from you.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March 31, 2011 was just an ordinary school day for me, until I received the news that my father Joseph Ciccarone had a stroke. I didn\u2019t even know what a stroke was or how serious the situation was until I arrived at the hospital. Upon arriving at the hospital, I began preparing myself for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":14041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2840],"class_list":{"0":"post-1247","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-forum","8":"tag-grief"},"yoast_head":"\n