“I said goodnight to my dad… and didn’t know it would be the last time”

I remember the last thing I said to my dad. “Goodnight Dad. Love you. See you in the morning.”

It was just a normal night. Nothing felt different. Nothing felt like it was about to change everything. That night, he passed away. I slept through it.

I was eight years old when my dad, Roy, died from pancreatic cancer. At that age, you don’t really understand what’s happening. You just know something isn’t right.

Looking back now, I can see the changes.

But at the time, it all felt confusing.

Before he became ill, my dad was full of life. He was always smiling, always active, always doing something. The kind of person who made things feel fun without even trying. He played professional football for Crawley Town FC, worked in high end car sales and had travelled all over the globe through the 80s and 90s. He was sociable, driven, and proud of what he did.

At home, he was just Dad.

In 2000, things started to change.

At first, it was subtle. He became more irritable. More tired. Not quite himself. Then he started losing weight. He was being sick more often.

I remember we went on holiday to the Isle of Wight that summer. It should have been like any other holiday.

But it wasn’t.

There was a moment where he needed a wheelchair just to get around. That didn’t make sense to me. He wasn’t someone who slowed down. He wasn’t someone who needed help. Even as a child, I knew something wasn’t right.

He went to the doctors. But pancreatic cancer wasn’t well understood back then.

There wasn’t the awareness there is now. The symptoms didn’t point clearly to anything. It just felt like he was unwell, and no one could quite say why. It wasn’t until six weeks before he died that we were told what it was.

By then, it was too late. The cancer had already spread.

Things moved quickly after that. He became weaker every day. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t keep food down. He lost so much weight that he became a shadow of the person he had been just months before. He was in and out of hospital, Crawley Hospital, East Surrey Hospital, and then eventually he came home.

That’s where he wanted to be. With us.

In those final weeks, he was mostly asleep. Or being sick. Or just too exhausted to do anything. It’s strange what you remember from that time, and what you don’t.

There are big gaps. Moments your brain seems to protect you from.

But some things stay crystal clear.

Like that night. Saying goodnight. Not knowing it was the last time. He passed away at 1am. I didn’t wake up. I didn’t hear anything. I only knew something had happened when I woke up and saw my grandmother standing on the landing. She wouldn’t normally be there.

That’s when I knew.

I went downstairs, and my mum told me. That moment has never left me. It’s been 25 years. And people often think time makes things easier. In some ways it does. In others, it doesn’t change anything at all.

Losing a parent as a child doesn’t stay in childhood. It follows you.

I’ve since been diagnosed with PTSD, depression and anxiety. It comes in ways you don’t expect. Memories that appear out of nowhere. Moments that take you straight back.

Recently, I woke up at exactly 1am. The same time my dad passed away, just 25 years later.

Your mind holds onto things like that. Even when you don’t realise it.

There’s also the realisation of everything you missed. The conversations you never had. The moments he should have been there for. You don’t just lose the person, you lose the future you would have had with them.

This year, I decided to do something about it. I signed up for the Worthing Half Marathon. I’ve never done anything like this before. I’m not a natural runner. I just started, one run at a time. Partly to help myself.

But mostly for him.

Because looking back now, the hardest part is how easily it was missed. The symptoms weren’t dramatic.

They were subtle.

Weight loss. Sickness. Changes in behaviour. Things you might not think twice about.

If my dad had been diagnosed earlier, we might have had more time. And that’s the part that stays with me.

So, this is about more than just running. It’s about awareness. It’s about getting people to stop and think, to listen to their bodies, to push for answers if something doesn’t feel right.

I can’t change what happened. But if sharing this helps even one person recognise the signs earlier…

Then it means something.

For my dad.