A career hiatus meant for travel ended in a father's sudden death

The author, a longtime journalist, had left his job to accompany his father on a journey to visit relatives overseas. The decision followed the loss of his mother to cancer in 2021 and a desire to step away from the relentless cycle of breaking news. Upon arriving in San Francisco to finalize travel plans, he noticed his father had lost significant weight. What the father initially dismissed as food poisoning was diagnosed at urgent care as terminal pancreatic cancer. The planned adventure was replaced by hospital visits, and the new luggage intended for their trip sat unopened on his father's doorstep.

Following his father’s death, the author found himself in a state of limbo. Without a job to return to in Los Angeles, he remained in San Francisco to manage the estate, handle the sale of his father's home, and navigate the bureaucratic exhaustion of being next of kin. While the time off provided the space to handle these affairs, it also left him with eight hours of idle time each day to process his grief. A year later, the author is ready to return to the workforce, driven by the need for financial stability, employer-provided health benefits, and a desire to reclaim his professional identity. A recent trip to Milan for the Winter Olympics served as a turning point, offering a glimpse of creative engagement that reminded him of his capacity for work beyond his role as a caregiver.