How The Season 3 Finale of Stranger Things Helped Me Grieve & Cope With the Loss of My Dad

"And I guess, if I'm being really honest, that's what scares me. I don't want things to change. So I think maybe that's why I came in here, to try and stop that change. To turn back the clock. To make things go back to how they were. But I know that's naive. It's just not how life works."

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I had unresolved, or delayed grief. I didn’t get the chance to immediately process and react like my mother, or like other members of my family. I found out my dad died when I was in the Philadelphia International Airport waiting to board a flight to London.

My family knew my dad was going to die. He had been in hospice care for roughly a month, and had declined rapidly in the last week leading up to his death. Esophageal cancer makes up 1% of cancer cases in the United States, and unfortunately it is one of the more difficult to treat cancers. My dad was diagnosed in the late summer of 2014, had surgery that December, and was on the road to remission in February of 2015. However in April of 2015, we were told it had come back and spread, and mid May he was gone.

When I was 21, my dad was fighting cancer. That December I spent most of the time with my parents in Florida, specifically at the hospital my dad was staying at post surgery. One day I was scrolling the internet on my laptop and saw an internship opportunity for the 68th Cannes Film Festival. With the encouragement of both parents I applied, and a month later I was accepted into the internship program. With assistance from family, I was able to make the deposit, book my flights, and was prepared for this once-in-a-lifetime experience. The internship spanned two weeks, from May 10th to May 24th of 2015.

The morning of May 9th, 2015 started out stressful. That's how it is every time I fly because I'm one of those people who has to get to the airport at least two hours before their boarding time, especially if it's an overnight flight. Plus my flights had been getting changed around once a month since booking them, and I was anxious that was going to happen again. When I got through the Pittsburgh International Airport's TSA and to my gate, I called my mother. We talked about how I was feeling regarding the trip, how she was doing, and how my dad was doing. He wasn't doing well. He was unresponsive, basically in a vegetative state. She put the phone up to his ear, and I told him I loved him, how I was excited for my internship, and that I'd call later to check in on him.

When I was 11 one of my grandfathers passed, then at 16 my grandmother passed. The night before finding out each had passed, I dreamt of them. I don't remember much of the dreams, but the thing that was the same in both is that they ended with giving me kisses and hugs, and saying goodbye. I wish I would've taken a nap on my flight to Philadelphia. Instead I listened to music, and played games on my phone.

I remember the feeling perfectly. The feeling of him leaving this world and going off to another. During the flight, emptiness hit me. My chest tightened, and I knew he wouldn't be alive when I landed. I can remember shaking my head slightly to erase that feeling and reassure myself he would still be alive, that my mom would say he's still fighting. The second I got to the gate where my connecting flight was, I called my mom, and she let me know that he'd died while I was flying. 

She told me that she'd let him know I was taking off, then took a nap, and when she woke up he was gone. The plane ride was a little over an hour. The next thing I can remember is feeling numb, and anxious about what to do. Should I go through with the next flight and onward to my internship, or should I go to a desk attendant and see about cancelling these flights and going to Florida to be with my mom. My mom told me that my dad had been excited about me going, and would've wanted me to go. Halfway to London the plane's lights were turned down so people could go to sleep if desired. My chest softened, and all I can remember is quietly crying until I fell asleep.

I'm grateful that I wasn't alone at Cannes. Several of my classmates were also accepted into the program, or another that was also based at the festival. I only told two of those friends what had happened. The only other people that knew were immediate family, close friends, and my partner at the time. Those two weeks at Cannes were amazing. I saw so many movies both new and old, met fantastic people, and by the end of it did not want to leave. When I landed back home, I was greeted at the airport by my mom, my aunt, and my uncle. We held a celebration of life for my dad, and buried him next to my grandparents.

After that life felt like a blur. I became moderately depressed and started taking medications, began drinking heavily, picked up smoking cigarettes, and became a really toxic person. I said and did a lot of things that I'm not proud of, and burnt a few bridges. I avoided talking about my dad in a  serious manner, but wasn't afraid to make jokes. It "helped with grieving" I would say, but truthfully I didn't feel anything. I was numb, and avoided the harsh reality as much as I could.

Enter season 3 of Stranger Things. By this point audiences around the world had grown to love Hopper and his father/daughter relationship with Eleven that had been revealed in season 2. The similarities between the bond with my father, and Hopper and Eleven's bond made the final scenes of the season 3 finale more emotional. As Eleven and the gang are fighting off the Mind Flayer in the Starcourt Mall, Hopper, Joyce and Murray are in the hidden lab underneath the mall trying to destroy the machine that reopened the gate. After a nasty fight with the "Russian Terminator" named Grigori, Hopper is trapped next to the machine, which is on the verge of exploding. Hopper exchanges a look with Joyce, who's in another room, and she ultimately triggers the machine to explode. The explosion closes the gate, but also disintegrates everything near it, and we're left to assume that includes Hopper. With the gate closed, The Mind Flayer dies, and the groups are reunited as ambulances and military forces arrive. As Will and Joyce reunite, Eleven realizes Hopper died. Then it cuts to a couple of months later. Eleven has now been adopted by Joyce, and the Byers are moving out of Hawkins. Before the gang shares their final goodbyes, Joyce finds the speech Hopper wrote to give to Mike and Eleven, and shares it with Eleven after finding out he hadn't. Eleven goes into a bedroom, and begins to read the letter. As Hopper reads off what he's written, a montage of the group saying goodbye and leaving Hawkins plays. The finale ends with Joyce closing the door to her now empty home as a beautiful rendition of Bowie's Heroes plays.

If I remember correctly, I teared up when Hopper died, and Eleven found out. When she started to read the speech left by Hopper, I uncontrollably sobbed. I don't know how to explain what it feels like to lose a parent. It sucks, it's unfair, and for me it felt like a piece of my soul was ripped out. When Eleven read the speech and cried, she was able to grieve. It's at that moment I realized I had never really been able to do that. As the speech continued, I couldn't contain my emotions and I wept. Their dynamic was one that I could relate to because they bonded the way my dad and I would. When we finally got a Wii, my dad and I would play Wii Sports together nearly every day. When we got a waffle maker, I can vividly remember my dad knocking on my door some mornings asking if I wanted waffles for breakfast. Like Eleven trusted and felt safe with Hopper, I felt the same about my dad. Like Hopper says in his speech though, life is moving whether we like it or not. In season 3 of Stranger Things, Eleven is older. She's interested in boys and friends, and a little less with hanging out with her dad. Reflecting back on it, as I got older I definitely was pulling away from my parents, because I wanted to hang out with friends or a boyfriend. I can remember moments in high school where my dad would ask if I wanted to go out and do something, and me saying no for one reason or another. I wonder if my dad felt like Hopper did? I wish I would've spent more time with him.

When Stranger Things first aired, audiences everywhere praised it for its nostalgia, but it's gone on to do so much more. It's helped Dungeons and Dragons regain popularity, helped doctors connect with patients, taught people about friendship, and has helped others cope with loss. My dad died when I was 21, as I write this I am now 31. Ten years of learning how to cope and grow through the trauma of losing a parent has not been easy. The season 3 finale had me crying for four hours straight, and I remember waking up the next morning and feeling a sense of relief. I had never sat by myself and cried, and grieved for the loss of my dad, and Stranger Things provided comfort to be able to do so.

Some days are better than others. On hard days, I'll sometimes rewatch that final scene from season 3. Like Hopper wrote at the end of the speech, "Keep on growing up kid. Don't let me stop you. Make mistakes, learn from 'em. And when life hurts you, because. it will, remember the hurt. The hurt is good. It means you're out of the cave."