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A thread of grief: Son turns to social media to cope with loss of father after industrial accident

The son of a man killed in an industrial accident says he had a tough relationship with his dad.

Daryn Bondarchuk, 52, was one of the men killed in an industrial accident at Millennium Cryogenic Technologies, an oilfield supply company in the Leduc Business Park last week.

The Edmonton man was a father to three adult children.

The day after his death his son Cody Bondarchuk took to social media to deal with his grief.

In an email to CBC News he said he began writing "out of shock for all the things you just don't know come up when a sudden death happens."

Bondarchuk said the process was cathartic.

"I wish I had tried harder. I wish I had forgiven him. I wish I had made more memories with him once I became an adult," said Bondarchuk.

Cody Bondarchuk continued to pour his emotions out in a series of 32 tweets.

These are his words.

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"A lot of the first few days is just a lot of driving. To different family members' houses, to an airport, to the house you're going to have to start cleaning out.

Grief and sadness is physically and mentally EXHAUSTING. I would give anything for just a few hours of not having to feel it to get a break and prepare for the next wave of grief.

You have to re-live the moment you found out every time you phone someone else to tell them, even if it's your parent's landlord, insurance broker, etc.

I'm just so sad.

You don't realize you're hungry until it's hours past the time you normally eat and you're suddenly starving, but even then, you buy food and can't finish it.

You see a photo of your dad from when he was your current age and he's holding you as a baby and you realize how you really thought there was a lot more time to build new memories and have new adventures.

You alternate between feeling guilty that you're just sitting around and feeling guilty that you're doing things and not sitting around.

Your eyes are sore from crying but you still can't stop. You want to sleep but can't fall asleep.

You get some downtime to process things on your own but just spiral into memories and what-ifs and loneliness.

Nothing you had planned for the weekend happens or matters.

You then realize that he, and everyone else in the world, never plans for someone to root through their phone without them there.

Everyone in the family just wanders around like zombies from place to place and no one else minds. You constantly police your own behaviour and emotional displays for the first few hours and then you completely let go and don't care about how anyone sees you.

You start to hear about everyone who was better off for knowing your dad. All the people he coached, worked with, helped out, and showed kindness to.

And then you realize that to you he was Dad, but he had other names: brother, uncle, son, partner, friend. And the community that is grieving gets a bit bigger.

You see your Christmas tree from the corner of your eye and remember that you're only six weeks until Christmas and it's going to be such a bad one.

You hear from people you haven't talked to in years, and almost feel bad that THEY are wishing YOU condolences because they also knew my dad and have their own right to feel grief too.

You scroll to your most recent non-death post from yesterday and are shocked at how far away it seems. Time moves so slowly.

You start looking into paperwork for death certificates and bank accounts and get immediately frustrated, put it to the side until you're ready for the headache it will bring.

You realize that because he died at work, you also have to deal with WCB, which just feels like extra punishment.

Every cliche you hear about sudden deaths comes true. You always think you have more time. You question that last encounter, those calls you chose to miss, what you wanted to say that you never can now.

You stand at Arrivals in the airport with everyone waiting for a family member and when he gets in you feel a bit more unified as a family but there is still something missing that will never come back.

Even though it's past 2 a.m., you'll still be a while from being able to sleep, and it won't be for more than a few hours.

You start to catch yourself unconsciously using past tense to refer to him, and it makes you sad that your brain understood so quickly that he isn't coming back.

Trying to figure out the code to their safe is really, really frustrating.

You meet friends of friends of your parent, people you haven't seen since you were a baby (if at all), and they show you so much love and kindness and tell you how much you look like them.

You spend an evening with your siblings and their partners and for the first time in two days you start talking about things other than your parent's death. Video games, friends, current events, etc. You start to feel the massive hole in your heart stitch up just a little bit

I don't know how long this lasts for, but the last two days have felt like that episode of BoJack Horseman that's completely underwater. It's surreal.

You feel guilty taking food from your parent's fridge home to eat even though you know that's an irrational feeling because it needs to be cleaned out somehow and why throw it out?

It's the first business day after, so you are able to start filing paperwork. Some staff are very patient and understanding that you don't know which documents to ask for, but many are not.

Paperwork is exhausting. Bureaucracy is exhausting. I feel like I worked two eight-hour shifts today."