Episode 2 | Tegan Kopilenko

1:47 Having a pre-k’r, doing zoom school is impossible, so he literally just watched tv all day.

8:08 it was nice because for those three days we got to pretend that he didn’t have cancer.

8:41 Pancreatic cancer is just awful and terrible and you need the most awful drugs to try to penetrate those cells.

9:06 He was NED for almost a year  - which was awesome - and then it came back, it had metastasized, but in very small not life threatening areas.

10:30 Everything is shut down - and it was actually fine for a few weeks - the kids were fine, we were working, we had a really good system…and then he just started to feel worse, and worse and worse.

12:39 Five days later he was gone. It wasn’t the cancer. It wasn’t necessarily the treatment. It was a combination of both. He had the will to live, and his body could not support it.

13:10 I couldn’t parent and be at the hospital all the time. So everyone showed up and I’m so grateful for that.

13:49 I went for walks by myself, just honestly, sometimes to listen to loud music and not think for a few minutes.

14:30 I feel so fortunate that he happened to pass away in a period of time during Covid where we could actually have 50 people at the funeral.

15:26 It was kind of the beginning of all of us getting our shit together a little bit.

16:31 Those birthdays without their dad were messed up and messed up double because they couldn’t have a birthday party.

17:13 But it was us, the three of us. We came home from that trip feeling not as a family of 4 missing a family member. But actually as a family of 3 who could communicate and work together better.

17:45 Separately from our family, I’ve been going through various stages of growth…I started to embrace those feelings of happiness.

20:43 When you’re going through something tough, some people come out to really be there for you.

21:35 It sucks that I feel like I have this privilege b/c I’m a widow, b/c I feel like everyone should have this privilege.