In loving memory 🤎🪽
Life is precious
You truly just never know when your entire world is going to flip upside down…
On March 5th, 2025, with no signs & no warning, I lost a very large part of my heart— my dad.
It feels like a horrific dream I am still begging God to wake me up from. I don’t understand, and I don’t think I ever will.
In short, all I’d truly like to say about something so unbelievably painful, that we’re all still trying to come to terms with:
After a completely normal work day for my dad alongside my brother..he suffered a very sudden heart attack that ultimately took his life.
I’ve replayed his last moments in my head 137393x as a nurse, and I’ve been having the hardest time accepting that this is real.
It’s my loved one this time. I got that stomach dropping front door news, and there was nothing more that could be done or that I could do to change it.
I simply DON’T know how to put into words how excruciating this pain and emptiness feels in my chest, my head, my stomach— everywhere.
Anger, frustration, confusion, ache. All of it.
I just can’t believe he’s gone.
It feels so strange, but as I do my best to navigate this new reality and push forward as I know my dad would’ve wanted, I felt a tug to share a *tiny* bit of who he was to me & have this to look back at whenever I need it 🤎
All I want is for everyone to know who he was— his heart, his empathy, his spunk.
To remember the incredibly strong, kind, loud, giving soul that was Rick Rojek.
I will spend the rest of my life making sure that happens, and this post is just the beginning of that.
I owe so much of who I am to who he was. Fearlessly & unapologetically.
He instilled genuine kindness and gratitude in me from day one. I’ve never known any different.
Faith in people, no matter where or what they came from— that everyone deserved a chance. Maybe even two or three more.
To always be grateful for where I was but to reach as high as I could for the stars, because my dreams were limitless.
How to negotiate anything & walk away with a smile.
To never back down from what I believe in.
That everything I wanted in life was possible if I put in the work.
It was always “heres the DEAL, Holl...”
Drive. determination, hustle & perseverance.
He was the hardest working man I’ve ever known, and I get a lot of that from him.
His heart knew no limits. He loved his family so much.
The way I watched him love my mom & worship the ground she walked on my entire life. He made sure I knew to never settle and that I deserved to be loved wholeheartedly.
Some of my most cherished memories are bike rides to get an oatmeal cookie & a gatorade as a kid.
The early morning hot tubbing & waterpark slide runs x100.
The sing & dance parties in the living room to our favorite songs.
The Donutland donuts we’d get every weekend.
The front porch storm watching.
His car dealership days where all I wanted to do was be his sidekick.
His loud & proud voice cheering me on in the stands when my dance team performed every Friday night lights home game.
His contagious roaring laugh that you could pick out in a crowd.
The random stories he’d tell that would make you laugh even if you had no clue wtf he was talking about.
The late night food he’d make at every family camping trip for as long as I can remember in big ole tins that we’d scarf down.
The smile and peace I could see in his eyes when he fished at the beach on our last two summer trips.
And the most recent memory, that I will cherish for the rest of my life, is from just a few short months ago…
On December 8, 2024, my dad walked me down the aisle and gave me away at my wedding— a moment I’d dreamt about my entire life.
I’ve found so much comfort in looking at all of the photos and videos of him from my wedding day, but most of all I’m holding tightly to the video of his speech.
I found the note where he’d typed up his speech still in his phone after he passed, and I immediately airdropped it to myself to have forever.
I’ve been watching it every single day. I’m sure I’ll have it fully memorized by the end of the year.
I’m still trying to find some form of normalcy each day as I figure out this new reality I’m living in.
I have never experienced loss like this. Unexpectedly and tragically losing someone that has been with me for my entire life is a pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
It’s paralyzing.
It's incredible how you can face the most emotional, tragic chapters in your life and yet everyone and everything around you keeps going as if nothing happened. Like, I just lost my dad, but I still have to wheel the recycling bin to the bottom of the driveway in the morning or risk it not getting picked up? None of that stuff mattered to me anymore, but the world just kept turning even though I felt like mine had completely stopped in place.
I couldn’t have even begun to understand what that feels like until it happened to me— it wasn’t even on my radar.
And I guess that’s just a part of what grief is.
It doesn’t always make sense. In fact, it almost never makes sense.
I truly have had moments where everything feels fine, and then five minutes later I could be just gasping for air at hearing the sound of his voice. It’s the craziest thing, grief.
It has completely changed me, and I know I'll never be the same.
Grief is permanently a part of my story now, and that’s something I have to come to terms with & live with.
I know that the days ahead are all going to look and feel different for me.
Some days it won't feel as heavy, but then there will be days where it feels just as heavy as the day the police showed up at my door in the middle of the night, and I called my mom and heard her say those words.
Some days will be good and some simply won’t. And that is completely okay.
There's no right or wrong way to grieve is what I'm learning.
We all process loss differently and in ways that might not make sense to literally anyone else but ourselves, and that’s okay. It’s not for anyone else to try to understand or make sense of.
Grief has no rule book. It has no timeline. It just IS.
I know that my dad would've wanted for all of us to push forward and keep going.
He would want us to live every single moment that we possibly can to the fullest, because life is SO short.
So I’m going to keep trying to figure it out day by day, and do my best to navigate this new new way of life & new reality.
I'm going to push forward— for him.
I know he’s here with me every step of the way, and I continue looking for signs from him every minute of every day.
There will never be a day I’m not thinking of you, dad. You are so deeply loved.
I promise to make you proud. Xo, your baby girl
I wanted to end this post by including some links to resources that have popped up and been very helpful & informative for me and my family during this time. If you or a loved one have experienced or are currently experiencing loss and grief, please know you are not alone. I hope these resources are useful and as helpful for you as they’ve been for me.
IOWA DONOR NETWORK | SPEAKING GRIEF RESOURCES | BOOKS ON GRIEF & HEALING |
PODCAST EP: HOW TO SUPPORT A GRIEVING FRIEND