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Kaitlin's story

A child still, Kaitlin tried to make sense of something no one that age should have to. When she was 18, he was diagnosed again. Each time, she found herself putting on a brave face. With her dad fighting, she took on the weight of staying strong for everyone around her.

“I felt I had to be strong for my dad and my sister, no matter what,” she says. “It meant I didn’t show much emotion - I kept a lot of my feelings inside.”

When her dad’s cancer returned a third time in 2022, it was more severe than before. He wasn’t well enough for radiation or chemotherapy. Surgery became the only option, which resulted in him no longer eating normally, and he could no longer speak. Kaitlin sat beside him in the hospital room when they received the news. “We had both been so hopeful,” she says. “We didn’t think it would be cancer, again.”

His third diagnosis brought feelings of fear, grief, and uncertainty, and Kaitlin had nowhere to put any of it.

She had spent years learning to push her feelings down, to stay useful, and to stay steady. There was no space in her life for falling apart, even when falling apart would have made complete sense. Friends who hadn’t been through anything like it didn’t quite know how to understand her, and during this time, she became isolated from her peers.

When her dad was moved to Tōtara Hospice, and then home for his final weeks, Kaitlin made a decision. She left her full-time job and became his carer, and in doing so, she gave herself completely over to his needs, leaving almost nothing in reserve for herself.

“All I was focused on was how I could best help my dad,” she says. When her dad passed away, the purpose that had kept her going disappeared with him. “I felt like I had lost my reason.” The grief she had been holding at arm’s length finally arrived, and she had to face it largely alone.

It was during her dad’s time in the hospice that Kaitlin found Canteen. After holding everything together on her own, it was the first time she had reached out for support.

Canteen’s support first arrived through video calls; small windows of connection in an otherwise isolated world. Her Canteen Clinician gave her tools to begin processing what she was carrying.

“Just being able to chat with someone during an incredibly isolating time helped a lot,” she says. “I suddenly didn’t feel so alone.” But it was the moment she met other rangatahi through Canteen’s event programme that something deeper shifted.

“I met someone who had lost their dad too,” Kaitlin says. “We connected instantly, in a way I hadn’t experienced before. There was this shared understanding - we didn’t have to explain ourselves.” That connection grew when Kaitlin joined Canteen’s Leadership programme, a decision that pushed her well outside her comfort zone.

“After losing Dad, I decided I wanted to live life to the fullest and take any opportunity that came my way.” She travelled to Sydney for a Leadership Festival, stood alongside Canteen members from across Aotearoa who understood the impacts of cancer.

“I’ve never felt so understood by someone,” she says about her new friend from that trip. “And the memories I made - I’ll truly remember them forever.”

Canteen gave her something she hadn’t known she needed: a space to feel safe. People her own age who could meet her where she was. Finally, there was room to feel young again, and to experience things she had missed while she was busy being strong for her dad.

“Canteen has given me some of the best moments of my life,” she says. “Not feeling so alone, and having the chance to help others through Leadership, it’s shown me how far I have come.”