How Do I Tell Your Mum? Losing My Dad While Still Caring for My Mum

Most guidance about losing a parent assumes you’re grieving one loss at a time. Ours wasn’t like that. My dad was diagnosed with cancer while he was still my mum’s carer through her dementia. For over a year, we were losing him and still caring for her, at the same time, every single day. If your story doesn’t fit the shape grief is supposed to take either, this is for you.

The Moment I Knew

We’d gone to see Mum and Dad in September 2023. Dad had made one of his lovely Sunday dinners. He ate his in the kitchen, which felt strange, and I could hear him struggling. A heavy cough, almost choking. I asked if he was okay. “It’s just heartburn,” he said. “I’ve been to see the doctor, I’m on omeprazole.” I’d taken it myself for indigestion before, it works quickly. Dad had one tablet left. That was the moment I knew something was wrong.

I urged him to see his GP the following Monday. A week later he had an endoscopy. I’ll never forget the call, 9:40am, Monday 23rd October. “I’m afraid it’s not good,” he said. “They’ve found a tumour.” Then, holding back his own tears: “How do I tell your mum? And who will look after her?”

Selfless until the end. He knew exactly how serious this was, and even in that moment, his first thought was her.

“We will tell her together,” I said.

Telling Her

I called him to say I’d be there in ten minutes, and for us to meet outside. We hugged, tears rolling down both our faces, and pulled ourselves together to go in and tell Mum.

Her dementia was never a blessing. But this was the closest it ever came to being one. She couldn’t register what a cancer diagnosis meant, or the severity of it, or what was coming. She was oblivious. From that morning right through to the end. It hurt that she never understood what he was going through. But looking back, I believe it spared her the heartbreak of watching him suffer. She was freed from that, even if neither of us could have known it at the time.

Underneath the grief, I remember the fear arriving almost immediately. How would I manage work, my marriage, seeing my son regularly. How would my son, who loved his Taid, take it. It was already becoming clear it would be just me, and possibly just me alone, looking after Mum from here.

The Year That Followed

Dad was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. A stent was fitted to help him swallow, with chemo and radiotherapy due to start five weeks later. But his condition accelerated faster than the treatment plan. He lost four stone in two months, his energy dropping fast, and his ability to help Mum the way he always had began to fade even before treatment properly began.

I was open with my employer from day one, deliberately so. The more people who knew, the more chance there was of getting help. That might not be everyone’s approach, and some might see it as making a show of it. I didn’t care. I had no choice. I needed the help, and I asked for it.

The treatment was gruelling. He couldn’t finish his chemo. By his final radiotherapy session he’d lost five stone and pleaded with staff for a pass to attend it. Soon after, he was admitted to hospital, and we knew we had to find the right care plan for Mum. I couldn’t do it alone, and Dad needed me now more than she did. That meant the hardest decision yet: moving Mum into residential care that February. She’d loved her home, and been so proud to own it. It broke her heart, and it broke mine to be the one making that decision for her.

Dad was in hospital from February to May. He battled hard, but the cancer spread, surgery was no longer possible, and we were told he was terminal and moving into palliative care. Hearing those two words, palliative care, is one of the hardest moments there is. They don’t even fully explain themselves, but you know enough. I kept thinking: how long has he got, what is he thinking, how do I help him enjoy whatever time is left.

I was still working across Wales and York throughout this. By September, I could see how fast Dad was deteriorating, and I made the decision to put a flag up at work. I asked for time off to properly support him, and to step away for as long as I needed to. My manager approved it before I’d even finished the sentence “family is the most important thing.” I know not everyone has that kind of support or that opportunity, and I’ll be forever indebted to my manager and my employer for giving me the chance to actually be there for him.

Not long after, he moved into a hospice for his final weeks.

Saying Goodbye

I knew I had to take Mum to see Dad one last time. It was one of the hardest things I’ve managed, but Mum was still fairly oblivious to what was happening. Sad in one way, but a blessing in another. I’m proud that I made it happen, that they had a few hours together even though getting her there and back was genuinely difficult.

Dad passed away in the hospice on 20th October 2024. I remember telling Mum. She cried, and for a moment I thought, she understands. But within seconds, she’d forgotten why she was crying at all.

On the day of the funeral, Mum travelled from the care home separately rather than with us, that broke my heart. We made sure she sat with us and her best friend, a familiar face that helped more than I can say. Watching her travel back to the home afterwards, alone, while we all stayed together. That’s one of the moments that still catches me.

The care Dad received in the hospice was extraordinary. He even joked, “I feel like King Charles in here”, coughing on purpose to show us how quickly a nurse appeared at the door. He found humour right until the end. That was him, entirely.

If Your Story Doesn’t Fit the Usual Shape

There isn’t a guide for grieving one parent while still caring for the other, especially when that other parent may never fully understand what’s happened. If that’s where you are, I want you to know: the mixed relief and guilt, the practical fear about your own life arriving in the middle of the worst news, the strange mercy of a diagnosis someone can’t comprehend. None of that makes your grief smaller or stranger. It’s simply what this particular loss looks like, and you’re not carrying it alone.

You don’t have to navigate it alone.