In January 2019, my dad died due to a work-related illness. He was a Los Angeles County Fire Department paramedic for over 20 years without skipping a beat. But within a matter of months after getting sick, he died. He was only 49-years-old.

Just like that, my world flipped upside down. My dad was such a monumental figure in my life. I was 15-years-old when he died, and sometimes it feels like I haven’t grown since then.

That’s what grief does to you. It can snatch up who you are as a person, and that’s what it did to me. For a long, long time, I never acknowledged how I felt, despite being constantly reminded of what happened.

I acted out in school, had my grades drop, and wasn’t the best son to my mom. I let grief consume who I was by pretending to be someone I wasn’t.

It wasn’t until I reached college and did some serious self-reflection that it dawned on me that I didn’t like the path I was going down. My mind was trying to move on, but my soul wasn’t healing. I repressed a lot of how I felt by just ignoring the grief.

By my sophomore year, I had no sense of the direction I was heading in. So, I decided to try to be productive and join the Daily Sundial. I had no clue that I was going to begin my healing journey.

One of the most vivid feelings I recall is the first time I was credentialed for a game at the Rose Bowl. While inside the elevator heading up to the press box, I felt an overwhelming urge to call my dad before reality set in.

There would be no answer on the other line.

Even on one of the most exciting days of my life, grief managed to slither inside my mind. Sports was the glue that held my relationship with my dad together. It was one of the things we bonded over most.

I still remember the time I helped him draft a fantasy football team. I couldn’t have been any older than 9-years-old, but I could see and hear the excitement emanating from him as I was reciting each player’s name verbatim.

My dad is the reason I wanted to get into sports journalism and not just standard news. As I went out to cover sporting events and interview world-class athletes, all I could think about was how proud my dad would be if he could see the things I did.

Being able to cover sporting events gives me the solace I need because it allows me to connect to my dad on a level deeper than anyone can understand.

I also find solace in music and movies. In fact, after watching Top Gun: Maverick for the first time in theaters, I cried.

Throughout my childhood, I couldn’t go more than a week without hearing my dad sing “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins. He loved playing beach volleyball, just like they did in the original Top Gun.

I know without a doubt in my mind that he would’ve loved to watch the movie, and it made me sad we weren’t doing it together. It was a nice reminder for myself that it’s okay to be human. It’s okay to miss my dad and to be still grieving, even three years after his death.

Funnily enough, my dad loved to listen to Morrissey. When I was younger, I never understood why. I just thought Morrissey had a weird, foreign accent and sang funny.

Little did I know how good “Back to the Old House” by the Smiths is.

Listening to music and watching movies might not seem like a normal way to heal and grieve, but if I have learned anything, it’s that nothing about grieving is normal.

Healing isn’t something that’s done overnight, and that is okay. It’s a journey. I’m a product of that. I’m finally beginning to heal from the most devastating event of my life.

As someone who is rarely seen without a smile and a joke in hand, some days I don’t feel okay. And that’s okay.

There is no right way to grieve the loss of a loved one, and I wish it hadn’t taken me five years to understand that. Some of the most valuable lessons I learned from college didn’t come from a textbook or classroom. It came from myself and the experiences I went through.

Since all those years ago, I’ve accumulated a lot of firsts. But my dad has had a lot of firsts since then, too. I was the first of my siblings to go to college, and now I am going to become my parents’ first college graduate child.

I might not be saving lives as a paramedic, but I am going to become a sports journalist because that’s what my dad inspired me to become. And I am proud to say that.