Richard Stack

Today is the day.

My seemingly healthy, strong father Daniel “Dad Timpf” Timpf died very unexpectedly on the evening of May 7 at just 69 years old.   It does not seem like enough to simply call him my father, because he was so much more than that. He was my rock, my hero and my best friend. He was loyal, funny, kind, selfless, hard-working, and so devoted to his children that it was impossible to be near him and not find yourself inspired. He was a writer, a painter, a sailor, and somehow knowledgeable on every subject from world history to literature to accounting. He was the most dependable person anyone has ever met. I always felt like, as long as I had his phone number, there was not a problem I could not solve. I needed him here with me; I am not okay, and I am far from the only person who feels this.   The birth of my son in February 2025, his first grandchild, was supposed to be a happy new beginning for our family. A family that had been already once devastated by an untimely loss: the loss of my mother Anne Marie to a rare disease in 2014 just a matter of weeks after her diagnosis.   The joy of my son’s birth was, of course, complicated by my also very unexpected breast cancer diagnosis just a matter of hours before going into labor with him. During this time, my dad did what he did best, which was to save the day. As soon as he heard about my diagnosis, he simply got into the car and started driving to New York -- making it through the tunnel just as my  son was born…on the day that happened to be his own birthday, as well.   In the tumultuous time of a simultaneous new cancer diagnosis and new baby, my dad was the sole reason for our stability, rushing in to help care for our son, and returning to do so again for my double mastectomy, reconstructive surgery, and any time that we ever needed him. It was an awful, awful year… but I found so much joy and hope throughout it by watching the beauty of a very special relationship form between my son and my father. This horrible thing that was happening was creating such a very special bond between the two of them -- almost making the terrible thing worth it -- and I was so excited to see how that bond would grow.   The bond was of top priority for my father, who visited from Michigan often. I saw him last on the Monday before he died, and my son was so proud to help his grandfather push his suitcase down to the car as he left. The goodbyes were quick. Why wouldn’t they be? We would all see each other again at the beginning of June, when we would all head to Texas for my shows and to see my grandpa. We wanted to make sure that my son could spend as much time as he could with his great-grandfather. He is, after all, 93.   I was certainly not over the trauma of my cancer or having to amputate the breasts I so badly wanted to feed my son with, but the one thing I could always count on to get me through my worst moments was seeing my son’s and my father’s faces light up when they saw each other, be it during the visits or our routine morning and bedtime FaceTime calls.   That is, at least, until I had to hear over the phone from a doctor I had never met in an emergency room in the same town up north that I’d previously announced to my father that I was pregnant that my dad was dead; I would never see him again, and neither would my son. It would turn out that last year was not the hard one, after all. Rather, it was the one I would now do anything to relive. I would amputate my breasts every year just to be able to speak with him one more time, even for five minutes.   I am currently living an unimaginable horror. For many people, this is a tragic story. For me, it’s my life. I do not know how I will recover from it. I only know that I have to for the sake of what is left of my family.