Chronic illness is more than a condition; It’s a perpetual shadow, an ever constant threat of a life cut short. It’s the lens through which my family has always lived – and died.

Tales of tragedy

By the time my dad turned 30, he’d already lived through more adversity than most people endure in a lifetime. His deepest traumas were etched into the stories passed around our dinner table, handed down like family recipes. Except these weren’t recipes for joy – they were the bitter ingredients of his suffering.

Even as kids, my brother and I knew our dad wasn’t like other dads. His silences were heavy, his joy rare and fleeting. We listened to his stories with solemn reverence, sensing – even before we fully understood – that we were inheriting a legacy of pain. We did what we could to help carry it, though the weight of it was far beyond us.

The body reflects the mind

Years of untreated mental anguish gradually etched themselves into my father’s physical being. His face, weathered far beyond his years, told a story of suffering without words. Out in the world, he was often mistaken as my grandfather. By the time I reached middle school, his hair had grayed completely, turning white as if drained by the weight of his thoughts.

Chronic pain and the deficiencies of his heart and thyroid made his every movement seem labored, as if his body had surrendered to the battles of his mind. The cognitive stress – ceaseless and consuming – spilled over, shaping not just his body but the way we all lived around him.

Inheriting it all

It’s hard to be a child and not understand why you feel sorry for your father. You don’t know how to help, so the next best thing is to stay out of his way. My father managed his misery in isolation, spending hours in front of the computer or the TV screen. He didn’t demand silence outright, but his presence filled the house with an unspoken rule: do not disturb.

I learned to isolate myself, too—reading or playing quietly with my toys, always mindful of keeping the peace and avoiding misplaced aggression. There was no room for patience in my father’s world, and I quickly learned there was little room for me too.

By the time I turned eighteen, the shadows of my father’s struggles had started to stretch over me. Fatigue, weight gain, and worsening mental health issues became impossible to ignore. A blood test confirmed I had Hashimoto’s, an autoimmune disease in which the body attacks the thyroid gland, leading to hypothyroidism. In this way, my body betrayed me as his had betrayed him, as though my inheritance was etched into my DNA.

Reflecting now, I don’t know how much of this inheritance was destiny. Was my father’s suffering passed down to me, or did I unwittingly mimic the isolation and avoidance that defined his life? Sometimes, I wonder if his pain seeped into my genes as much as his choices did—and whether I am doomed to the same fate.

Decline

My father’s pain and mine have always mirrored each other, reflections of the same fractured glass. But while my struggles remain (mostly) externally invisible, his have become impossible to ignore. At sixty-two, dementia has claimed him before retirement could. The man who once lived in a state of quiet misery now exists in fragments and premature goodbyes, his mind unraveling faster than I can make sense of.

Being around him is unbearable—not just because I see his suffering, but because I see my future. The way his pain manifests now, in confusion and detachment, feels like an inevitable ending to a story I’ve already started to write. I catch myself noticing similarities: his resignation, his isolation, the way his body betrayed him long before his diagnosis. And I wonder if I’m just a few decades behind him, spiraling toward the same fate.

I feel guilty for avoiding him, for struggling to muster patience or compassion when I see him. But the truth is, I’m not sure what’s harder—watching him slip away or wondering if someday, I might too.

The weight of what’s left

Resentment is a hard thing to carry, and it’s harder to let go of. I resent my father for the weight his pain placed on me, for the way his illnesses consumed everything around him, leaving little room for anything – or anyone – else. I resent the way his silence dictated my own, how his suffering felt like a blueprint I was doomed to follow.

But it’s not just him I’m angry with. I resent my own body for betraying me. I resent the splintered pieces of my mind. When I look at my father now, I feel so many things at once: anger, pity, guilt, sadness, love, shame. And beneath it all, I feel fear the most.

The unknown is the heaviest weight. I don’t know if I’ll escape my fate or if I’m already bound to it, but the uncertainty digs at me in ways I can’t articulate. I know I can’t predict the future, but I also know that pretending not to be afraid won’t make it any easier to face. Life is perpetually moving ahead and it’s one of the hardest truths to swallow.

For now, I carry the weight of what’s left. The resentment, the love, the crippling fear, and the fragile hope that maybe – just maybe – my story can end differently.