The following is an adaptation of the eulogy I gave at my sister’s funeral service. She died of cancer in March 2018.
She was my only sister, born seven years after me. I never imagined I would have to one day stand here and give her eulogy. A few days before she died, I told her that she has to get better to one day take care of me, and that I would get sick on purpose and even make her wipe my butt. She would usually laugh when I made a joke like that, but now she could barely manage a smile. The morphine and fentanyl were taking away her mind. She was no longer herself.
You may be in a state of shock as to what happened because she probably seemed normal to you when you last saw her. I want to be honest and explain what the cancer did to her.
She was diagnosed with stage 2b triple negative breast cancer in October of 2015. Stage two means that cancer cells escaped from the site of the initial tumor and made their way into nearby lymph nodes. I live in Europe, so after she was diagnosed, I came back to help her with treatment. I was with her for most of everything the doctors advised: chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation. I did my own research and verified that she was getting the best treatment that modern medicine allowed. She was going to get better. The cancer would go away.
Chemotherapy was the hardest for her. Imagine a volcano that activates deep within your body but refuses to erupt through the surface. It caused far more pain than the tumor itself. There was no shortage of cheerleaders in the doctors’ offices and the support groups that told her to be strong and never give up. This was only temporary, they said, a mere speed bump of what would be a long and fulfilling life. She took it to heart and endured months of medical torture, more than I believe I could handle myself.
Once her treatments were done, I went back to Europe and believed she would go back to living as she had before, but one thing they don’t tell you about cancer is the terrible, constant anxiety you face while in remission. A random headache was brain cancer. A stomach cramp was cancer of the gut. Fatigue was blood cancer. Her doctors wanted to put her on anti-anxiety medicine, because any problem to them can be hammered away with drugs or surgery, but instead I talked her down from many of the panic attacks she experienced, all of which I was sure were false alarms.
During these panic attacks, I was careful to not say that the cancer didn’t return, because how could I know for sure? So many people told her she’d be okay, and the cancer would never come back, but how could they know? They were just saying words, building her up as a “cancer survivor,” but cancer always comes back, and in her case, I don’t think it ever left her.
In January of this year (2018), she contracted the flu. The flu turned into bronchitis. Then it turned into bilateral pneumonia. They say that on an x-ray lung cancer and pneumonia look the same, so one month was lost pumping her with antibiotics when the symptoms were caused by cancer cells that relocated from her breast to her lung. I was walking to my favorite French café on a Saturday evening when I got a call from her. The results of her lung biopsy came in.
“It’s cancer,” she said.
“Are you joking?” I replied, not wanting to believe her.
“No.”
We cried together. I told her that I’d be with her to fight this just like before, and she wouldn’t be alone. I booked a flight that night. Four days later I was back home. She was already on round-the-clock oxygen, fed through a nasal prong. Her coughing was continuous. She couldn’t lay on her back or else she would feel shortness of breath. She didn’t sleep for more than three hours a night. I knew she was experiencing bad lung symptoms for the previous six weeks or so, but when I saw how bad she was, I couldn’t believe it. I just saw her a couple of months ago, and she was fine.
The worst was the pain in her chest. She said it felt like a tight squeezing, as if her heart was about to stop. One night, we swapped out her oxycontin for another pain medicine that we were told could manage her pain better, but it didn’t work. She howled for hours until it was safe enough to resume the oxycontin again. My little sister was suffering, and all I could do was watch.
We received a new treatment plan from the doctors: eighteen weeks of chemotherapy and three weeks of radiation. Both were to start at the same time. I liked the plan because it was aggressive. We were going to go after this cancer and put it on the defense, but I couldn’t help but notice the word “palliative” on the medical consent forms she signed. I knew it was a form of care that aims for comfort instead of a cure.
Nonetheless, I wasn’t discouraged. There were many stories of people with advanced cancer who survived many years, and not once in her dozens of doctor appointments did I hear the words “death” or “dying.” Everyone knows that we all die, and you know that one day you will die, but we don’t really believe it. Death is something that happens to other people, not us, and not to your kid sister.
Her condition declined so steadily that every day I came to expect a new function or ability that she would lose. I bought a wheelchair because it became too difficult for her to walk, and being her annoying older brother, I wheeled her at a fast speed to give her an adrenaline rush. One time I tried to wheel her over grass, but we got stuck and I accidentally dumped her on the ground. She forgave me, which was easy to do because I tormented her much worse when she was younger and I used to rip off the heads of her Barbie dolls for fun.
She completed her first few days of treatment and then Friday came. She had serious difficulty making it to the car for the trip to the doctor’s office. She saw black in her vision and had to pause for minutes when performing the most basic of movements that I take for granted every day. I was still determined to complete the last radiation session of the week because I knew that without treatment, she wouldn’t make it, and I didn’t want her to die.
I pushed her to try just a little harder, and we made it to the doctor’s office half an hour late. She somehow managed to hold her failing body in the machine to get zapped with radiation. Then she looked at me and told me she was done. She couldn’t make it home. I called 911. While waiting for the ambulance, I called my mom to tell her what was happening, but I was so choked up that no words came out. I had to compose myself and call her again. The ambulance took her to the hospital and she was admitted to the intensive care unit.
Her decline continued in the hospital. The doctors pumped her with so many drugs that I joked with her that she was officially a medical experiment, and that when she got better, she’d appear in all the top medical journals. In addition to the oxycontin she was on, the doctors gave her a patch of fentanyl, a drug so powerful that children have died playing with their parents’ used patches. That wasn’t enough to relieve her pain, so they also put her on a continuous morphine drip.
Her physical pain faded, but at the cost of impairing her mind. She became confused and shared random memories from years ago, but even in this condition, no doctor told us that she was dying. I even used the medical word for dying, “terminal,” to ask the lead doctor if she was indeed dying. He told me that she was “getting to” the terminal phase. I had to read between the lines to know what was going on.
The biggest hint I received was when one doctor showed me side-by-side CT scans of her lungs spaced one month apart. Last month, there were little white specks, but now her lungs looked like Swiss cheese. Part of her left lung collapsed. If those were the scans of any other woman, I’d think she was in dire straits, but this was my sister. I didn’t want to accept that she was dying as much as it was staring me in the face. The doctor said, “We don’t usually treat a patient with cancer this extensive.” I told my mother and father, and we began to prepare for her death in our own ways.
They actually gave her a round of chemotherapy while she was in the hospital. “Our goal is to get her home,” the oncologist said. My dad and I were desperate to try it, thinking that it could help, but chemo takes weeks to begin working. My mother, who has watched her stepmother and sister die of cancer, was more realistic. She prayed for an end to her daughter’s suffering.
She soon needed a mask that delivered 100% pure oxygen. If I were to put that mask on you, you’d pass out quickly, but even with it on, she complained that she felt like she was suffocating. I couldn’t imagine the agony she was going through, and although she had no shortage of people by her side, she was dying alone, experiencing it alone. She grabbed my arm and said, “Brother, I’m scared!” I replied instinctively, “Don’t be scared,” but I was scared too. At that moment I would have done anything to trade places with her, to exchange my healthy body for hers, to die so that she can live. I would have made a deal with the devil if he presented himself before me, but there was no deal to be made as I helplessly watched her approach the abyss.
I couldn’t handle what was happening. Nothing in my life prepared me for this. I snuck in a bottle of scotch to the hospital and started drinking in the nearby family room. I’d sit by her bedside, break down while holding her hand, then go back in the room and drink some more. If she opened her eyes while I was beside her, I’d wipe my face and pretend everything was okay, but she wasn’t fooled, and asked me why I was crying. I kept drinking until the hospital ceiling started to spin. I passed out and my mother put a blanket over me.
The next day, the doctor said, “If she becomes unresponsive, she will likely pass in 24 hours.” I drove home to shower and get a few days’ worth of clothes. On the way back, my mom called me and said “Hurry up” before hanging up the phone. I gripped the steering wheel tight and yelled so loud, in a way that I never have before, that it didn’t at all sound like me.
I arrived at her hospital room. My mother and father were by her bedside. The pulse and blood oxygen readings on the monitor were now replaced with the word “Comfort.” She was unconscious and taking her last breaths. I could hear fluid in her lungs. I paced the room back and forth, repeating “I don’t believe it” while shaking my head. I wanted to grab the television that was hanging on the wall and throw it through the window. I wanted to destroy everything in sight. I wanted to kill myself.
I calmed down long enough to sit by her. I held her and told her that I loved her and will always love her, and that I was sorry this happened to her, and that it was okay for her to go now because it would end her suffering. The space between her breaths got longer and longer. Her limbs turned a faint purple and then her face. My beautiful sister, the most important person in my life, took her last breath. Minutes later, I swear that I could see her chest rising up and down, because there was no other way that I could see my sister other than alive, but she was gone.
I know I’m supposed to stand up here and say she didn’t suffer. I’m supposed to say that she died in peace. But that wouldn’t be the truth. She was in tremendous physical pain that had to be managed with the most powerful drugs made by man, and because the end came so unexpectantly, even for someone with cancer, she was not able to make sense of her dying.
She still had a lot of living to do, a lot of places to see, so she felt robbed that the end came so early. If you put a gun to my head right now, I’d ask you to get on with it and pull the trigger, since I’ve done everything I set out to do, but that wasn’t the case for her, and if there is anything that proves to me that life is inherently unfair, her death is it.
I wish they told us. I wish the doctors said she was dying. At least we would have spent the energy of her last days and months in a different way than fighting a futile battle to keep her alive at such a high physical and emotional cost, of repeatedly having hope after hope crushed as the cancer spread on its own schedule, regardless of what we threw at it. The doctors orchestrated a great charade that only added to her suffering.
I have to say that her death made me feel like a fool. For years I’ve been chasing women, fame, and novelty, thinking that those things would make me happy or somehow complete me when the one thing that could make me happy was so close the entire time. Instead I went to faraway lands, as far as I could, to pursue exotic pleasures and entertainment. They were fun at the time because my family was healthy, my sister was healthy, and I was healthy, but now that all seems so meaningless. I don’t even want to remember those experiences. The only thing I’m scared of is that in a few months, once the pain of her death subsides, I’ll go right back to doing all that, because I don’t know what else my life is for.
A few days before she died, the palliative nurse came by and gave us a packet with the title “My Wishes,” which was actually a funeral planning guide in disguise. It was a way for my sister to express herself in case of death, because as you can tell by now, you’re not supposed to tell someone they’re dying.
We went through the packet and got to a question that asked how you would like to be remembered after you die. I have the packet right here so I’ll read to you what she said in her morphine fog: “I want people to remember me as kind, and that I tried my best to share my love and make people happy.”
As someone who gave way more than she took, I know she will be remembered in this way. When I die, I can tell you that thousands of people will celebrate, and it’s a good thing if you don’t know why that is, but with her that wasn’t the case. She was a big-hearted person through and through, which just adds to the unfairness of it all.
I know a lot of you had crazy times with her at parties or concerts, but our relationship was simply one of steady joy. She was someone I could talk to about whatever came to mind, or I could just sit in silence with her to enjoy her presence. We could play off each other and make ourselves laugh until we cried, or have serious discussions about our lives. She was the first person I would go to when I had a bizarre experience, because I loved hearing her reaction and the jokes she could make from it. I would go to her when I was unsure about a woman, and she would give me an analysis that–in hindsight–was always right.
Before I broke up with my last girlfriend, I first cleared it with her to make sure I wasn’t being too hasty. Before any big decisions, I would always get her thoughts, as if I was launching a nuclear missile and needed her to turn her key. I would even focus group my newest jokes on her before trying them on others, because she would never judge me for being dumb. She was my best friend. She balanced my rigid and overly analytical nature. She made me see the light of things, that there is a play to life, not just the seriousness of seeking perfection and trying to figure every little thing out. She understood me more than anyone else in the world. Who will I trust more than her? Who will I tell my silly stories to now? Who will tell me that I’m going too far down the wrong road? She left me and now I don’t know what to do. Sister, where are you? Why did you leave me? I’m still here! I didn’t know that most of the happiness I experienced in my life was because you were a part of it.Â
Late last night I was trying to make sense of her death. I know her well enough that I decided just to ask her what I should do, and see if a voice answered me back. I closed my eyes and remembered when she was in elementary school and I would pick her up from the bus stop every day at 3:15pm. I remembered when I took her to HFStival, her first rock concert, where I watched her carefully from the mosh pit while she sat smiling in a stadium seat. And I remembered all those chemotherapy visits, of helping her get through the toughest part of her life, where our relationship deepened to the purest love that a brother and sister could have. These film reels were playing in my mind when I asked, “What do I do now?” What came back to me was, “Remember me, take care of yourself, I love you.”
I know that life goes on, but it won’t be in the same way. Experiences I have from this point on will come with a different feeling, a different color. The sadness will reduce somewhat, but I know the emptiness will remain, and I’ll just have to make the most of life without her. My wish for you in the years to come is to remember my sister and take care of yourself, and know that if you are in this room, she did have love for you. Thank you for being a part of her life, for making her who she was, and I hope that her spirit will remain close to your heart until the end.
Previously:Â What To Do If Someone Close To You Gets Diagnosed With Cancer
A touching eulogy, Roosh.
I read this at a cafe and everyone was looking to see why my eyes filled with water…thank you Roosh
yea lol I read this in school. not a good idea
Kristian, exactly. I almost had to run to the bathroom lol. God bless Rooshv’s sister:)
<3
Fucking hell, Roosh.
Took me to the 12th paragraph before I started crying.
I realise I’ve been too selfish to my own loved ones and have to start to treat them better and appreciate more that I still actually have them in my life.
Reading about your time together with your sister was so sad but beautiful in a way, stuff like this shows humanity at its best.
Very very sad.
A touching piece. I lost my father around the same dates. He died comfortly in a hospital bed surrounded by my mother and his three male children. It has taken me some time to negotiate his death, but time has helped.
My condolences.
A great piece of writing. It’s good that you were with her, or rather slightly less terrible.
That was tough to read without breaking down at work. Thanks for sharing this.
I lost my sister too, when she was in her thirties. It was sudden and unexpected. Your experience sounds much worse. I didn’t have time to make it to her side and see her in pain, it was just a shocking phone call and then dealing with the logistics. The worst part was knowing what my mother was going through. It will get easier to have positive memories of her the more time passes, that’s all I know to say. Stay strong, a lot of people you have never met need you to stick around.
Thank you John. My condolences.
My mother was stronger than me at the time of my sister’s death, but her grieving is far more acute.
This was a really beautiful eulogy.
Thanks for sharing your experience, and for the brutal honesty.
One of my best friends was treated for cancer last year, and he’s just been told it’s spread to his lungs and liver. The prognosis is good. I know I need to be there for him and try and ease his suffering after reading this.
God bless you Roosh.
I hope you find some peace. Thanks for having the courage to speak truth into the world, and thanks for helping me find some guidance as a young man who felt nothing but hostility growing up.
*not good
I cried hard, dude. This piece made me realize that I need to start treating my loved ones better right now, because ultimately that’s what truly matters. No political bs, no recognition, no ideological craziness, nothing matters when you are in this situation. Your sister’s simple kindness resounds…
This touched me and helps put life in perspective. Sorry for your loss.
Heartbreaking but beautiful, Roosh. I have an older sister, and I can really relate to this passage from you,
Take care.
I have been following you since 2011 Roosh, and that was the most powerful piece of writing by far, got really choked up. Dealing with death on a personal level is never easy and puts a lot of things into perspective. Thanks for sharing and my deepest condolences.
That was really hard Roosh. It saddened me to read this, especially imagining it happening to someone I love. Unfortunately it is very likely, and I am so ill-prepared to deal with it. A very Western life dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure really doesn’t leave much room for the more important needs that are other people. I don’t know how I would deal with it. This sad piece made me realize that. I’m sorry about your loss.
I didn’t just pull this off some random feel-good section of the internet, but this comes directly from my favorite book, the pages worn and yellow because I have read it so much. I hope it helps you:
“Someone who has abandoned worn-out garments
sets out to clothe himself in brand-new rainment;
Just so, when it has cast off worn-out bodies,
The embodied one will encounter others.
‘This may not be pierced by weapons,
Nor can this be consumed by flames;
Flowing waters cannot drench this,
Nor blowing winds desicate this.
‘Not to be pierced, not to be burned,
Neither drenched nor desicated–
Eternal, all pervading, firm,
Unmoving, everlasting this!
‘This has been called unmanifest,
Unthinkable, and unchanging;
Therefore, because you know this now,
You should not lament, Arjuna.
‘But even if you think that this
Is born and dies time after time,
Forever, O great warrior,
Not even then should you mourn this.
‘Death is assured to all those born,
And birth is assured to all the dead;
You should not mourn what is merely
Inevitable consequence.”
Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2: 22-27
You are a courageous and honest man, Roosh. God bless you.
And I really miss your live streams; can’t wait till the next one.
Like others, I cried reading this. Roosh, I’ve followed your work for years and have never posted.
Blessed be the memory of your sister. I extend my deepest sympathies to you, Roosh, to your mother and to your father.
This must have been gut wrenching to read aloud and also for the people gathered there because it is so different than the normal ‘sanitized’ eulogies we so often hear. I’m glad you had the courage to power through it. I don’t know if I could have done the same for a younger sibling. I’m sure you were overcome w/ grief while delivering it.
I’ve lost MANY people around me in the past few years. Some to cancer, some younger than your sister. It has recalibrated me about what is truly important in life. And it also made me realize, like you probably have, life is -quite- fragile. You are not guaranteed a single moment here whatsoever.
So when you see this perverse vapid consumer driven lifestyle. These robots walking around in the digitized zombie fog, it makes it even more frustrating. We can care for ourselves and those close to us. You’ve had a year to reflect now so I’m assuming you are along the same journey I had to take. Given your twitter post related to this I feel that the wisdom associated with loss and what has true value is being revealed to you. That is a gift brother. You can thank your sister in some part for it.
Do you believe in an afterlife?
Modern people are afraid of death, and that fear hurts us.
Roosh did not know she was going to die, when they knew she was.
I did not know my mom was going to die until 3 days before she did.
Until then, she was just getting her “treatment” and “checking in.”
They said she was getting better, and she seemed to be doing
better than the initial drop in health when her chemo/radiation started.
That is, she improved until they blasted her with anti-biotics on top of
chemo and radiation. Anyone dealing with what Roosh or I has gone through
knows that those last few days of slowly drawn out death are the longest
days you will ever live.
Lets be brutally honest folks:
How many people have died of cancer vs. cancer treatments?
Anyone who has seen the death of a cancer patient drawn out
by the modern medical establishment knows the answer.
I would not wish anyone, not even my worst enemy, to go out like this.
Thanks for sharing your story Roosh. Very powerful.
I hope this article reaches millions and shifts each and
every reader’s focus to what actually matters in this life.
Most of the physical suffering my sister experienced was at the hands of men: the chemotherapies, radiation, and multiple surgeries. Just as bad was the nonstop “you will beat this” false hope that led to mental suffering. Ultimately, the doctors have no skin in the game. If she lives, they get paid. If she dies, they get paid. There are no consquences for anyone in the medical custodial chain. They dangle the hope of life while putting you through hell.
If she received no treatment at all, which of course is unreasonable since she was so young, she would have died while experiencing maybe 20% of the pain she actually did experience.
My sincere condolences, Roosh. Been following you for years, first time I’m leaving a comment here.
I’m not judging and I can only imagine how tough and difficult it must be to make these kinds of decisions in the midst of a cancer diagnosis, but I was actually quite surprised to read that you went down the mainstream cancer treatment route. Having researched alternative medicine as well as the mainstream cancer and pharmaceutical industry for years, I’ve long felt that I would NEVER ever subject someone close to me – or myself, for that matter – to the cancer-industrial complex. There are plenty of cheap, much safer and healthier treatments and natural injections I would try first before even thinking about chemo, radiation, etc.
Again, I haven’t been in this situation myself so far, so I guess it’s easy for me to say, but I encourage everyone to do more research into natural/alternative cancer treatments.
At any rate, I also feel like this was a very powerful eulogy and an important reminder of what really matters in life. Thanks for that, Roosh!
Greetings to all readers, God bless.
My father had his cancer surgically removed and it came back stronger. After that he decided to dump mainstream treatments and he went fully alternative and he got cured. I saw that with my own eyes and I was trully amazed. Anyways, I’m sorry for your loss Roosh, you made me cry and deeply appreciate things.
Cancer thrives in an acidic environment. Cancer cannot survive in an alkaline environment. Acidic is low pH while alkaline is a high pH. I’m talking about your blood/body pH. pH is an abbreviation of “potential of Hydrogen”.
So to prevent and even reverse cancer you have to raise your blood/body pH level. One easy and affordable way to do this is to drink water (a lot of it) with a pH well above seven. Water like this is available at some health food stores at a kiosk located inside. Like Whole Foods. I use my local Sprouts. All you have to do is stop drinking tap water and sodas and other bad stuff and buy some 1 or 3 or 5 gallon containers for storing and a dispenser, for, well, dispensing the good water into your drinking cups or glasses. There are also numerous high-pH foods you can look into. This simple method is all about make your blood/body alkaline instead of acidic.
Ever heard of a “doctor” telling a patient about these little facts? It’s called the cancer industry for a reason. And what is with the weird little term “treating cancer”? Should the cancer industry be CURING CANCER?
Condolences Roosh. What a heartbreaking story.
My condolences on your loss . lost my step brother a few decades ago . still miss him .
My daughter is an ICU nurse at the big urban hospital in downtown Detroit.
She believes it is her calling in life to bring comfort, care and compassion to people in your sisters condition. she advocates and intercedes for her patients with the Doc’s and admins. She is a person of great faith. She tells me all the time of the courage and grace of people like your sister all the time.
I would beg to differ, Roosh. There are much greater profits to be had in the chemotherapy route.
My wife got to know a homeopathic healer here in Germany who has saved several lives through non-traditional methods, including our neighbor, who was diagnosed with terminal beast cancer (four or five years ago).
That healer has changed my wife’s life as well, especially in that she no longer needs to take expensive, minimally-effective probiotic treatments for her intestine now.
Who is this healer in Germany?
I speak German and would love to meet him/her next time I’m there. My gf has arthritis and I would love to see a homopathic person.
Can i please get the name of this healer?
You are just as much to blame to be honest. You pushed your sister until her body gave out. You indirectly helped kill your sister Roosh. You should have listened to her
Nice try faggot. But you weren’t there. And if that was you then you probably would have acted the same.
my condolences and it was heart wrenching to read this.
i’ve been following you for years (at least since 2008 or earlier…)
i’m at work right now so didnt have a chance to compose my thoughts better but just as a side note, i work as a physician (cardiac electrophysiologist, not an oncologist) and ultimately i guess you can say that we have no skin in the game but for the most part we are haunted by our failures (or at least most of us are). Doctors are also human and don’t know everything. sometimes patients get better, sometimes they don’t. Maybe we have an inkling that some may not get better but we try to be optimistic. I can’t speak for every doctor out there but I try to be honest regarding prognosis and optimistic if appropriate, especially since i manage lots of patients with end stage heart failure.
Life is precious, thanks for the reminder. Sorry for your loss
Oh, Roosh. So sorry for this loss. Having seen lung cancer first hand, I know it to be a monster. But then, so is the radiation/chemo combo.
Our family will be praying for yours.
It destroyed my heart. I cried.
Memory eternal. It’s sad that your sister suffered for a time here on Earth, but it is nothing to her now – she has made the passage and now has eternal life. She is suffering no longer, and nevermore. Those of us left here are the ones who must bear the burden of our beloveds’ passing, and all we can do is take solace in the good times we had with them, that they are in a better place, and the comforting truths that were written for us millenia ago.
sorry for your loss, been there. Having a big family youll see too many funerals. But least in those conservative parts of the family least alot of births. Seeing death over and over again is uncomfortably but desensitizing and youll always see the brighter side of things as a cope I suppose.
also
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1Ftp7V1Lvs
anyone here notice the same anti male rhetoric just colored different here. Think we can see an xyz arguement here.
this would be the liberal non breeding dying side of the family
An experience like this must really fundamentally change the way you look at the world. May your sister rest in peace and may you find the strength and courage to carry on the Valizadeh torch.
You want to know what scares me? There’s no-one I love enough to write a eulogy like that about, and I’m goddamn sure there’s no-one that would write anything close to that about me. I’ve fucked up, and I don’t know if it’s too late.
It’s never too late to change, brother.
It’s horrible that literally every person alive comes from a “family” yet so many of us have ended up in your situation. The epidemic of broken families is staggering and what you’ve expressed is way too familiar.
I just recently came to the realisation that it’s impossible for me to have a healthy relationship with my own father. On one hand it was a relief to recognise that it wasn’t entirely my fault we’re not closer, but on the other I can’t overstate how much it hurt to lose the hope that there was something I could do right to be able to have that relationship.
Anyway, what I came to understand some time ago that changed my life for the better was that even when we come from very broken families, there’s nothing truly preventing us from creating new, strong, loving families that are everything we wished we had, everything we know the world needs, even if it means finding a model in examples outside of our own personal experiences and going on a journey of discovery.
I’m married now and browsing on my phone while I wait for my tiny daughter to finish nursing so we can go to sleep. Her dad hasn’t had the ideal personal experience of family either, but we’re both intent on what we’re going to create together now, drawing on all the lessons we’ve learned the hard way. I don’t know what the future holds, but I believe in us like I’ve never believed in anything before. Believing any of this was possible was the first step to getting out of a very dark hole and making meaningful new human connections.
I hope you’re wrong. I can very easily believe that you are, because so many people who feel the way you do are very wrong. I hope you’re able to find out for yourself soon. While you’ve got more life to live, don’t wait to live it well.
Best of luck.
Wow that was incredibly touching and poignant. She was truly blessed to have a brother like you.
And I must say that in publishing this you’re doing a lot of good. Your writing here has I think caused many readers to reflect on their own familial relations as it has me.
You’re a good man Roosh.
Keep doing what you do and never forget your sister. Honor her in all things you do.
Sorry roosh. I lost my dad to lung cancer, its brutal to see someone you love deteriorate. In my case too, the doctors knew he was dying, but wouldnt tell anyone. My stepmom knew because she was already selling his things as he lay dying. She worked at the hospital that killed him. Chemo and radiation do more harm than good generally…they make quality of life so poor, the final days are spent in agony.
Life is such a precious and fleeting thing. If there’s to be any meaning at all, it is to create experiences and memories like the ones you had with your sister.
So sorry for your loss, Roosh.
This is one of the most heartbreaking and touching things I’ve ever read. Thank you for the reminder to live life with as much passion and joy that we can find, and to cherish the things that are really important, because in the end none us has much time here.
Let’s all look for ways to play in the rain: https://www.rooshv.com/playing-in-the-rain
Thanks for linking that. This is the first of his articles I’ve read and I’d never have read that. It pulled up a few half-forgotten memories and got me thinking some deep thoughts. Great piece.
If you disappeared from the earth today and never returned, you’ve already left a legacy of truth that rivals religious martyrs. I pray for your sound mind and that you encounter some, even one, that will make that emptiness easier to bear.
You didn’t mention how your sister felt about the path you’re on, but I’ll reckon she’s proud of the man you’ve become. It’s lovely that she got to watch you grow from wild boy to learned gentleman.
Keep at it RV.
Death is life’s ultimate common denominator. What’s unfair about death is it’s not spread or giving equally. Lots of people who don’t deserve long lives get them and many who should be afforded a 90 year old birthday don’t see it. I have a 2 year old son and a daughter on the way and in a weird scene I constantly think about what it would be like to loose my young son to death and how I don’t think I could handle it. I weirdly think about the trauma and sense of loss those parents who had kids at Sandy Hooke elementary. How could they deal with it. Life aint fair. It’s cut throat. All you can do is live every day like it could be your last. Love everyone the best you can. Keep things close to the vest and understand that it’s going to end eventually and that nobody knows when that day will be. Your sister got robbed of some good years by mother nature. But she was lucky enough to have a great loving brother like you during the time she lived on this earth.
I remember vividly sitting in the hospital and watching my dad die. I sat there and watched the machine go flat and watched him take his last breath. I know he was scared. But who wouldn’t be. His death inspired me to get busy living. I’m grateful for what I have and I don’t put anything off. If I want to do it- I do it. If I want to see it – I see it. If there’s someone I love being around – I spend time with them. Watching someone you love intimately die before your eyes will shake you to your core. Stay strong man.
What should give you a little peace is that she knows you loved her. There’s really not much else you could have done.
Oh Roosh, your words cathartically made me re-live my fathers passing. I too remember that I “yelled so loud, in a way that I never have before, that it didn’t at all sound like meâ€, as he drew his last breath.
Good luck on your new journey in the Christian faith and may God illuminate your sister’s soul.
I am sorry about your loss, this is a very sad story. I too am dealing with something similar: the sudden death of my mother to cancer. She was young. Many years later, I think of her more than ever. I studied death. Everyone should do it, but everyone just runs away from it. I watched the youtube videos of people who died of cancer. Best thing that helps me is philosophy. Let’s not kid ourselves: we all have a death sentence pending on our necks. It’s just a matter of who goes first, and who goes last. But, I must say, it is really sad that your sister suffered so much. I have been thinking that my mom was actually lucky. She felt tired and a few weeks earlier she stayed in hospital for a couple of weeks, but the incompetent doctors didn’t spot the cancer, so these idiots sent her back home. One Sunday, she said she was tired. Two hours later she was gone.
Let’s not fucking kid ourselves. Let’s grow the fuck up, all of us. Let’s learn to stare death in the face.
”Dear Lucilius, what can I do? I try not to waste my time. Death is chasing us. We were already on the road to our death, since the day we were born. ” – Seneca
Also, it is a shame that we live in a stupid and ignorant culture that do not understand death. People like your sister should be offered a chance of dying painlessly, not a chance to live painfully. A painless euthanasia. People should stop saying stupid shit they don’t understand such as ‘you are a survivor’, ‘you must make it’ and such stupid and meaningless shit.
sorry, Roosh, I wasn’t talking about you specifically, but about people in general.MWjCi
I ended up writin g the stupid code there….I guess I am an idiot just as well, like everyone else
My condolences. This made me cry like a little girl. Thank you for sharing.
And thank you for your work. I am currently in the process of reading Lady with my girlfriend. I believe I have found the one girl I want to spend the rest of my life and create a family with, and Lady is a good book to start important conversations.
Roosh more people will mourn your death than relish it. Youve made a big impact on a lot of young guys. Im sure she’d be proud to know of the insecure fellas who found confidence and security in the manosphere works, including ROK and your gonzo adventure novels.
My sisters and mother were abusive and i dont talk to them, but my dad and i speak every day. It will be a priviledge to take care of him now and as he ages. Theres no better investment of time.
Excellent…this is not Roosh the PUA, Roosh the Bad Ass, but Roosh the Man.. the human being.
Death has been defeated, my friend, trampled down by the Christ, the King of Glory. He IS RISEN!
You don’t have to go back to your previous life—a man of your courage will soar even higher as a Man of God.
God be with you, sir.
When you were far away from her, you were not in pain because in your mind she was OK and alive; in your mind. Something possible is now impossible. It is your desire the cause of pain, a pain that reminds you of her is an attempt to experience her again, therefore desired.
It is meaning what confuses, your mind giving live through meaning and now no meaning could possibly revive her. How real she was, still is. Confusion is pain because we don’t understand the true perspective of life. The unknown filled with emotions and imagination.
If life has real meaning then she still has real meaning.
I am so sorry my Friend. You had a beautiful, kind wonderful sister.
My grandmother died from burns from a kitchen fire, and my Dad was sick for a very long time and needed a transplant and dialysis [Thank God he did eventually get that transplant]
I think people with pain recognise other people with pain very well.
I am anxious and depressed and found out recently that the health service doesn’t even offer free counselling. Few people want to know or help a man’s pain.
Your work got me through a lot of rough times. I lived vicariously through it, it impacted me and it gave me hope when nothing was giving me hope.
My patience diminished, my faith diminished [it has since returned after a brief trip to ancestral homelands]
But i am here, and i’m trying to move forwards.
And i think you will too. You will never forget her, and her love is in your heart as well.
I’d say find God and faith but its a personal thing, and for someone in pain or for someone angry which i have been for a long time, its very hard to hear someone say to them “find faith”
All i can do is offer my deepest condolences, and my empathy with what you’ve been dealing with Roosh.
Mr. Roosh, very sorry to hear about your loss. I’ve read your articles a lot in the past but never posted.
fwiw, I ran across a movie a while back called “Griefwalker”; talks about the destructiveness in western culture of how people look at death. The people in the video discuss what you’ve seen.
You’re writings have helped me considerably dealing with red pill of relationships, but I find there are red pills for other things such as death and purpose. The first red pill I ever took was not about women.
I hope you never forget the love you have for your sister. Such things should not be forgotten.
My Respects brother. I lost someone dear to me also a year ago and am trying to pick up the pieces. There must be a deeper meaning to life after all this suffering.
as I tear up reading and writing this.
A tear shed is a tear grieved.
Thank you Roosh
~Joseph, Malta,Europe
A beautiful eulogy. Sad that she died so young but it is good that she lived a life of love with people she loved.
I couldn’t help but think about my four sisters reading this.
Thank you,
Roosh.
Well I definitely didn’t fell a tear reading this. Men don’t cry, r-right?
Very sad and touching 🙁
You can find healing in faith, in church. Maybe you can come to Romania to meet father Sava, an american converted to orthodoxy and who lives at Oasa Monastery https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZc7b_lUvSQ
I have noticed a depth of change in you, and I now see where it is coming from. Thank you for sharing. It was hard to read the last couple of paragraphs due to the tears pouring out of my eyes, but it was such a beautiful eulogy. My condolences to you and your family.
Amen brother.
Processing the death of close family members tends to gradual and extended in my experience. I’m still processing my father’s death almost two decades later. I don’t think I cried, except on the night that I watched him go, until ten years later.
The death of friends tends to hit harder but the grieving tends to dissipate faster (say 5-10 years vs never). In my experience.
Grieving over loved ones is bittersweet. The anguish can be life changing, but its also all that you have left of them and so you don’t really want it to ever fully stop. You just want it to leave you alone enough to be functional.
To this day, few things irritate me as much as family members or friends who do not treat one another with respect to the shortness of life. That’s a lesson that only death can teach.
Hi Roosh,
I’ve been reading your blog for some while, and this time the sotry was so moving I had to comment.
I’m in my office right now, I just finished reading and I cried big tears. Very moving.
It made me think of something that I noticed with you. In all appeareances you seem to live a life of entertainment and expedient pleasures, like you say yourself. This is on the surface. But isn’t that quest for expediency just a way to avoid meaningful investment in something else, which is in fact your true nature?
I sense in you (just like in me) a great, deep, thirst for meaningfullness.
We see this era as a big producer of meaninglessness, and rightfully so. So, why not use this ordeal with your sister to refocus on what is meaningful? Did you read Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for life? One of the rules is “Pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient”. I am about the same age as you (39) ans I feel strongly that I am in an age of my life where that statement is truer than ever.
Your sister seemed like a very good human being. You will find a way to cope with that loss, because you will find, in yourself, resources of which you did’nt even suspect the existence. And by digging in the direction of what is meaningful in the rest of your life, you will, in my opinion, put that loss in perspective and give it all the meaning it deserves. I mean this. Because nihilism, the opposite of meaningfullness, is not a good place to be.
I wish you good luck in that process and hope the best for you.
Lawyer
Montréal, Canada
She will always be with you Roosh. May her body Rest In Peace and her soul live on.
Roosh,
Your books and writing have really helped me a lot in life. I am really sorry about your loss.
Take care, man. Thanks for all
Roosh, I really wish you were a father. Feeling like I have gotten to know you over the years, made this much harder to read. Thank you for writing it.
The reason I think you’d make an excellent father is because you have a certain mindfulness that can take a seemingly micro, meaningless event & extrapolate a deep, wise macro analogy from this event.
I think someone who values wisdom is rare in today’s world. Your wisdom needs to spread to the following generations. What way to leave your impact, your legacy is better than to have children?
Sorry for your loss Roosh. This was a touching eulogy. I felt like I knew your sister after reading it.
Sorry for your loss Roosh. I feel like I know your sister after reading this.
Sorry for your loss.
Im so sorry for your loss Roosh. This touched me because I lost my mother to cancer when I was a freshman in high school, my experience was very similar and reading this brought back a bunch of memories I had stashed away. I don’t pray but my thoughts are certainly with you and I hope time allows you to heal.
Beautiful eulogy.
very sad, we all can relate, just need to push through
Been deailing with depression lately I needed to release tears in some way I just needed to read this thank you Roosh!
May she RIP . You keep going forward man!
My friend lost 3 close friends in six weeks, so in January he got a 10 week old Yellow Lab puppy , he named her Luni. He takes Luni to his office everyday. Live goes on you can say one finally grows up when the realize death is final, but life goes on, so you must pony up and carry on. I think you’re awesome.
My deepest condolences, Roosh.
While not a new article, this arrived to my e-mail subscription today and it’s hitting hard at home. Last week I was told my sister’s cancer had spread and her chances to live are very slim. Just like your sister, it’s a tumor in the lung that spawned from an older cancer (albeit ovarian in her case), and now it got her spine and kidneys. The weeks before being interned she wasn’t eating well which made her malnourished and too weak for a surgery. The day my family received the news she was so high in painkillers she called everyone to take her home because she thought she was being discharged.
My biggest worries are her kids, now 7 and 15 – their father does care, but he’s kinda dumb and struggles to control his life, and I don’t trust at all his current girlfriend. The elder brother is living with my uncle, the younger with me. So guiding him is up to me now. I know what I have to do, just have to figure out the how.
Cheers Roosh.
Sorry to hear that.
Roosh, I’d only ever heard of you through the madhouse that is twitter and this so called cultural war. It’s all too easy to forget that there’s a human being on the other side of the screen. I don’t know if people heal from this and I certainly don’t look forward to finding out myself, but I wish you the best moving forward. I think you’re a better person than you say you are, and you’re definitely better than many on the internet might believe.
So deep. It almost brought tears to my eyes. Changed my mood for the whole day. I feel like I have to be careful who I spend my seconds with. Life is precious and short. Thank you Roosh for sharing this. Best to you.
My Deepest Condolences for you and your Family, Roosh. The loss of family members is as if a part of you dies with them .. Forging onward , in their memory, is really all that you can do. —
I lost My Fiance at 23 and it turned me into the rather bitter commenter you always deleted from ROK. Despite success and travel I have watched the entire world literally dissolve into a literal Orwellian nightmare; with only your work to give me a laugh whilst venting!
— Perhaps I might owe you a slight apology for being a wiseass on ROK- especially considering how you must have been suffering.. but the work you voiced with ROK was incredibly valuable and rare.
You should be proud of how your life experiences matured you and developed your character. If you had stayed home with your sister you would be just another ‘basement statistic-incel’ instead of the insightful we all rely on!
Thanks for all your creative efforts. I hope you find proper solace soon. – Wyatt
This article bought tears into my eyes. No kidding.
I have a younger sister, and she is to me and you described your sister as, to you. Brother, I’m sorry for this unfathomably painful loss of yours. God only knows how I would react if I were ever put in such a situation.
I know a woman in my town who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. True story.
She was very poor, living in a town in Romania. Nothing she could do, couldn’t afford the drugs.
So she decided to stop eating, so she would die quicker.
After a few weeks of not eating, her body healed itself. Her cancer cleared. She is alive today.
Because she accepted death, there was no struggle in her. She relaxed.
Because she stopped eating, the body could heal itself.
Start a family, please, Roosh!
Start ASAP.
Have kids, become a father!
It is past time.
My condolences for your sister, and best wishes to you.
This was very moving
Roosh,
Sorry for your lose. Loosing someone close who you love hurts, whether this is death or divorce / separation (how I found you) .
I lost my father to cancer in 2008, I came across a few things as he was ill but my father’s mindset was he was dying of cancer. My father had lung and two brain tumors, both stage 4 cancers.. and was gone in 5 mths!
We tried Gerson Therapy, clean water, FIR saunas, you name it.. After he died, I continued to research cancer therapies and found Rife and MMS, and a multitude of practitioners globally who where treating cancer a different way. Profoundly this information is dismissed & ignored.. If there were cures they would be out there surely?.. No if they have powers enough to ban a book on game, how much power is behind keeping all in fear of death with the big C?
Ty Bollinger has a great Documentary on cancer researchers and those changing lives without chemotherapy. The 1939 cancer act prevents cures from coming out into the open… There is a lot of money suppressing alternatives.
One of the best resources for independent information is
>>>>> oneradionetwork.com <<<<<
search on there for all the doctors going their own way and helping people get well. I even did an hour on my journey of healing myself and my experience from my fathers death of cancer and the things I do to stay healthy.
This is a red pill health channel.
John Shore
This is probably the most touching piece of writing I’ve ever read. Yet, I struggle to comprehend how it comes from you, Roosh, considering your attitude towards women. I struggle to wrap my mind around this beautiful, pure love you show for her. Is having a non-sexual relationship with a woman the only way you can see her as a whole human being who has worth beyond that of a carton of milk? I’m sincerely sorry for your loss. She sounds like a beautiful soul.
That’s his sister. It’s interesting how a feminist like you could turn this around into something else. Show some class you dirty feminist.
Beautiful Roosh. I’ve learned the hard way that no one will ever love you like your family. I’m glad you made the most of your time together in this world.
First of all – deepest condolences to the passing your sister. I only lost a parent recently and even this was very painful – cannot imagine how this might have been with your younger loving sister.
But I would like to comment a bit about the cancer treatments since I researched it extensively. And by research I mean looked at all sides, because you can spend 100 lifetimes wading through the mainstream literature alone. The conventional treatments are highly ineffective and chemo works only on a certain subset of cancers. That is why most oncologists would never use chemo on themselves – there are quite a few anonymous questionnaires on that. The survival rate is nowhere near 20%. They achieve that rate by including all the fake cancer treatments (falsely diagnosed with cancer and then “successfully” treated) and they get that number by not including year 6 after the treatment. Because if they included year 6 then the survival rate would drop to 5% due to the remissions they have in the 6th year. And 5% sounds about right because the honest MDs and alternatives estimate 2-3% of cancers responding well to chemo – the rest of 2% responds well to surgery. These are generally cancers with a 50-75%+ healing rate.
As for the rest of the cancers – you do have a much higher chance of going the alternative routes vis high-dosage supplements (orthomolecular), vitamin C infusions, diet change, Essiac and other herbs, potent cannabis oil. There are even plenty of vitamin C studies out there even if less available for others.
Even if the alternative therapies don’t work, then you have the far superior life until the end complete with your hair and life as you know it. And in most instances the patients live longer since chemo and radiation causes cancer itself!
My guess is that the more well-aware MDs would have recommended this to your sister, but it’s useless to cry about it. The disease certainly has already a high-tech cure and I fully blame the globalists for this. It’s just that they chose cancer as their depopulation and pension-saving tools. Your little sister was just another victim of their evil deeds.
And again – condolences. I am sure that you will meet again and she is doing fine herself wherever she is.
Oh man! Brother I wish you had known about black salve. She would still be alive if she had used that.
Very sad and very touching. Though I didnt cry I came pretty close to it.
She’s proud of you and knows you loved her very much. All the best Roosh.
Chemo and radiation…a fine way to suffer before you die. Funny when was the last time a president died of cancer? Reagan got Laetrile and Carter got the immune treatment for cancer, and the banned Gerson therapy cures 40 percent of people at end stage cancer sent home to die by their doctors. This is basic red pill stuff.
So sorry to read that Roosh.
I’m sorry for your loss. I think your sister would be proud of your beautiful eulogy. It evoked some very deep emotions out of many readers here, including myself. It makes the reader look inwards and ask themselves if they are making the most out of spending time with loved ones. May the Lord Jesus Christ give you strength and guidance going forward.
I’ve been a reader of your work since 2013. I’m glad you still have the rooshv and youtube content. Your work has been very important in normalizing the red pill and helping many on their journey to the truth.
Really sorry to hear that. Words cannot express the feelings of sadness and anger reading this stirred in me.
Going by your posts, especially the recent ones, it is clear you “see” better than most. By recognising the dysfunction of this society in regards to female behaviour you have uncovered the fact that there is more to this than just that. But, there is more to this much more. It goes beyond the 3D, just because our eyes cannot perceive anything beyond the visible light spectrum does not mean that this is all there is. If you would like to know more research the Nag Hammadi texts (and what Don Juan told Carlos Castenada). Also read this ebook (it’s free) it will shed light on what this reality really is and why there is so much suffering here – http://www.abigailsinsights.com/the-sovereign-human-matrix/
I have stopped trying to give this information to “normal” people because they are busy “intoxicating” themselves with state sponsored bs. I saw something in your recent posts and knew I had to share this knowledge with you even if it fell on deaf ears (which I hope it won’t).
Anyway cheers for all the good you are trying to do and I hope you keep growing spiritually as well.
I’m really sorry.
My condolences on the passing of your sister, Roosh.
Maybe instead of “fornicating,” spewing hate, and subsisting off of earnings from trashy books, you could have put your Microbiology degree to use to help people, as a scientist, doctor, or nurse.
Instead, you haven’t really changed at all, blaming doctors for choices you made in your own life, and for your sister’s care.
Most of your eulogy was about you, which is grim topic.
Take a long look in the mirror before you write anything again.
It’s not too late for you to change course (i.e. get your nursing degree).