Requiem Aeternam

This post has nothing to do with computer science, cybersecurity, software engineering, or other topics I normally write about.

My dad passed away very recently, on what looked like a relatively normal day for us on a weekend. The doctor at the hospital’s emergency response ruled it as death from a heart attack based on what I told them about how my dad was feeling that day and what his medical history was like.

Upon seeing my dad’s lifeless body, I immediately got reminded of my mom’s passing back in 2015 as she died in the arms of her children after more than half a year of battling a late-stage breast cancer.

My mom’s passing happened not very long after I graduated with my bachelor’s degree, started my career, and went to pursue a master’s degree on the side. My younger sister was still a sixth semester university student.

I had so much regret about my mom’s passing. I saw how much she suffered from the pain caused by the cancer spreading throughout her body with me not being able to do a single thing there. I hadn’t achieved anything significant in life to show off to her, I hadn’t managed to improve the family’s economic situation significantly, and I hadn’t managed to give much for her to enjoy in life.

I was in shock when seeing my dad’s body and started thinking of things I could’ve done that could have helped avoid the incident that caused his passing that day. I started feeling regrets.

After processing those regrets, I figured one difference between what happened back then in 2015 and what happened now in 2026. My dad didn’t have to go through months of excruciating pain like my mom did. I and my sister already managed to have some career achievements from which we managed to spend for our dad to enjoy his life to the fullest in his retirement.

We still had plans for more things to experience with him, which we sadly can’t do anymore, but at least we managed to do some fun things together and get him to experience things he couldn’t experience before.

Parting is always hard. As a child, I always wanted for my parents, both dad and mom, to live healthily as long as they could, or even forever. But forever is not possible, nobody lives forever. There’s a natural limit to how long a human body can keep functioning to stay alive.

So at the very least, I’m thankful that my dad didn’t depart in a way that caused him extreme suffering, since one of my constant fears throughout these past years after my mom’s passing is to have to witness my dad going through that kind of suffering in his final days.

As the first child of the family, I met and got to know my parents a few years before my sister was born. In that period, I was always very fond of my dad because he always brought me to do fun things together and introduced me to his friends (who also treated me very well).

The memories I have about my dad from the first few years of my life (1-5 years old) are mostly of him taking me out to play together, eat tasty food, meet his friends, and see things I’ve never seen before. Now, the memories I have about my dad from the last few years of his life are also mostly of us going out to have fun together, eat tasty food, meet his friends, and see things we had never seen before.

We got to know each other as parent and child in this world in a good way, and we spent our time together as parent and child before he departed from this world in a good way too.

Requiem aeternam.