Losing My Dad While Traveling in America: My Story

I went to America for my very first solo travel experience, doing Camp America. I set off with my hopes high, ready for adventure. I genuinely thought it would be life-changing, and it was, but in ways I could never have imagined.

After a rocky camp experience, I was thrilled to finally have finished my duties and to start exploring the States with my new best friends. The trip was finally starting to feel like the adventure I’d hoped for. We made our way from New York to LA, Las Vegas, celebrated my 25th birthday in Texas, and then headed to Louisiana. It felt like the ultimate girls’ trip with nights out, endless exploring, and real, belly laughs. Then we arrived in Memphis. And everything changed.

The Call That Changed Everything

I woke up in Memphis and immediately started getting ready, excited for our Graceland tour and Elvis Museum visit. I checked my phone and saw a few missed calls from Mum and a text asking me to ring her. Thinking it was probably nothing urgent, I called her back.

She asked if I was with anyone. Robyn, my close friend, was by my side as we were sharing the room. My other friends, Cicely and Isabell, were in the next room. I walked into the walk-in closet for a little privacy, and suddenly I thought… oh god, this is serious. My first instinct was that our neighbour had died (he’d had a bad fall while I was away).

Then she said the words I could never have predicted:

"Chloe, Dad has died."

I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. I fell to the ground. I feel guilty about this now, but the only thing I could say was, “No, you have it wrong.” I couldn’t understand how, it didn’t make sense. He was healthy. Perfectly healthy. And then I just cried.

Robyn was immediately there to comfort me, and I’m so grateful for her being by my side. The news hit hard, and for a while I didn’t want to ask for details. Some things feel too heavy to face right away. My nan got on the phone to try and reassure me, but I just couldn’t take anything in. Then they had to go, and suddenly I realised I was physically alone with this grief, thousands of miles from home.

Coping on the Fly

Cicely and Isabell came in to comfort me, and we all sat on the floor crying together. It lasted a while — maybe an hour. I remember thinking, this is so awkward. I need to get up and do something; I can’t just cry forever. I’ve always tried to ‘solve’ things quickly, even when they can’t be solved.

The first thing I said to my friends was:

"I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can go to Graceland today."

We still laugh about that now.

We moved to the sofa, and after a while I needed to get out the flat. We went on a walk around Memphis. Everything was beautiful, but I couldn’t see it through the grief. I cried on the street, in Starbucks, the gift shop, and even at an outside bar when a live singer played “Only the Good Die Young” by Billy Joel. Ironically, we all burst out laughing--it was that kind of painful, cosmic-joke kind of timing. Of course that song would play, the universe does love a bit of dark comedy, luckily so do I. 

Back at the flat, we watched some movies and then tried to find the least triggering comfort TV show. We settled on Bewitched, which became the only thing I could watch for weeks. There’s something oddly comforting about 1960s laugh tracks when your world’s falling apart. 

Grief in Every Stage

 

I don’t know if the stages of grief are real, but I felt them all; disbelief, rage, depression, guilt, and sometimes all at once. I was consumed by every emotion while also feeling paralysed by emptiness. Panic attacks came sporadically, like a ticking time bomb ready to explode at any moment.

I insisted we still do things. I didn’t want to ruin my friends’ trip and I wanted to experience everything, not just for me, but now for my dad too. I still feel guilty for carrying on, but I hadn’t flown alone before and was too scared to suddenly leave everyone, especially because I didn’t want to have to be alone when travelling back.

I also had to cancel the next part of my trip which was a month-long journey around South America. My days became consumed with phone calls to family and friends, cancelling and rearranging flights, and planning the rest of my time in America so I could make it to Boston to fly home with Robyn.

In Nashville, I spent hours at a motel café calling my family, crying, and trying to figure out my next steps. I think the baristas were probably so confused by me crying into my coffee every day, but they ended up giving me a bunch of free cakes, which honestly made my day. The first time I felt a small sense of I’ll be okay was when I was sat on the motel steps on the phone to my sister, I was being passed around to all to my family, and I could hear them all laughing together on the phone as they enjoyed their dinner. I felt left out as I wasn’t there, but also relieved that they were okay. When I returned to the motel room to see my friends napping, I felt a small, grounding sense of relief. I wasn’t alone.

Traveling With Grief

We finished the trip, and one by one, friends flew home. I could have left early too, but I was determined to get to Boston. Honestly, I’m still not entirely sure why, I think I wasn’t ready to face home and accept what had happened.

I still enjoyed parts of the trip. Even with crying in hotel rooms and on public transport, I pushed myself to keep going. I stopped drinking (hello, Shirley Temples) but still went to bars and restaurants. Who knew grenadine and cherries could take the edge off better than wine. I wanted to have the American experience I had dreamed of after camp, and I didn’t want my friends to miss out because of me.

On the flight home, I remember thinking: My life is about to change. And it did. Nothing was the same. I still fight to feel like myself sometimes. But grief transforms you. It is the most intense pain I have ever felt, and experiencing it abroad was uniquely strange, disorienting, and, in some ways, unexpectedly meaningful.

Reflections on Grief

Some triggers from that time are still raw. Any reference to Elvis makes me ache. But it also reminds me of my journey through grief and how far I’ve come. It reminds me of the beauty of friendship; I’ll forever be grateful to the friends I made in America for being there and carrying me home-- for the bad karaoke at the Nashville music museum, for holding my hand on night buses around the States, and for finding ways to make me laugh when I thought I couldn’t.

Grief is full of fears. I was scared of everything for a while; unanswered calls and texts, even just leaving my mum’s side. And even now, two years later, I’m still learning, still grieving. It’s a process, and I don’t think it ever really ends, it just changes shape.

I’ve heard so many metaphors and quotes about grief over the years. They all mean something, and sometimes they even help explain it. But the truth is, there’s no perfect way to describe it. Grief is personal. It's unanswered pain. It’s a new experience, like learning to ride a bike or learning to swim, scary and unfamiliar. Experiencing grief abroad is unique in another way, too. You go through it in a foreign place, and then when you come home, you relive it all over again, seeing how your family is healing while you feel like you’re starting over.

Sometimes grief is isolating. You feel completely alone in how you feel, like no one truly understands what you’ve been through. That’s why sharing the experience with someone who was there with you is healing. It reminds you that you’re not alone. It’s confusing, painful, even beautiful in some strange way. It reshapes how you see the world, yourself, and the people you love. Its echoes are still with me, but I also feel how far I’ve come and how deeply grateful I am for my dad, for my friends and family, and for the journey I’ve been through. And even after all this time, I'm still learning how to say goodbye to him.