A year and a half

my honest thoughts of grief today

It’s been a year and a half since my dad passed away. I think of every month that goes by and the markers of my grief. Today feels like an in-between date that I am holding onto just for myself. I didn’t need it written down or on my calendar, but I woke up and my body just knew today felt significant and heavy. I want to share some things on my mind.

I notice every red cardinal in my backyard, every dad and grandpa walking around with their child, and even the tender girl next to me at the hair salon FaceTiming with her father. It makes me smile. It makes me hurt. Sometimes it’s a sword that pierces into my chest and other times a hug from God showing me that He is near to the brokenhearted.

It is my part of remembering.

It is the only way to have a glimpse of the closeness that is left for us and I hold onto it permanently.

I remember myself a year and half ago today. A different version of me. Quietly grieving for a long time, but very familiar with it. I was sitting down to watch a funny show with my favorite snacks and a freshly ice cold beverage. It was 10pm. I went from laughing to receiving the most heart wrenching phone call and packing up a random black dress from my closet at 12am. No time for goodbye. No time to process. Guilt. Shock. I was brought down to the smallest version of myself i’d ever been.

It’s not pity. It’s not a cry for attention. It is just a large part of my story that sits at the core. Sometimes opening up or writing even just slightly about my experience feels like I am oversharing. It feels unfortunate that I feel like I have to say that for some reason. But, I think that is what I am feeling so heavily. It is easier to lock it up. And why? I have been thinking a lot about grief and have watched people in my life as they walk through it. I am not here to blame the world in my grief, I just notice how our society sees pain and sometimes subconsciously decides to mark it as un-comfy or inconvenient. Not on purpose, but just a way to cover up how sad life can be. Covering sadness and empathy with assumptions. Making other peoples pain seem lighter in order to protect our energy.

“How close were they?” “How old was he/she?” “Weren’t they an addict?” “I think they got to say goodbye?” “Good things will replace that kind of loss” the list goes on. I wonder if it is how we keep our internal focus directly on our own life, being the only thing we want to see. That isn’t always a bad thing. It is important to protect our peace. Grief and pain at the end of the day, is the journey you walk alone even with someone walking beside you.

It just feels disappointing that saying the honest truth about our feelings through grief can be taken as a very raw expression of anger or passiveness. Maybe it’s just the truth that we feel too uncomfortable to face for ourselves, so instead we keep it in.

To me, I think grief is in words. It’s in thoughts. It’s in stories. It is in confusion. It is more than a picture of my flowers, my music, or an outfit that I want to share with you. It’s feelings I can’t keep inside my brain any longer without wanting to scream.

It is my road rage on a Tuesday morning, the fear of being avoided, the tears after a passive aggressive interaction, the smiles and laughter in a room full of others, and the cold shoulder from a complete stranger of a barista at 7am. And yet, as I write this I see that I am only looking across the way at a world full of hurting people. With their own similar versions of my reality. Loss. Fear. Depression. Anxiety. Hope diminished. All needing love and all needing empathy. Most of it, left to be held quietly to themselves.

I wouldn’t expect it to be different, but I wish somehow it were. I’m reminded all the time that it’s not. I feel so fragile, yet I feel so expected to be strong. To be focused on happy things happening to me in midst of my loss. To have had come to terms with the nightmare and trauma of it all, because somehow it made sense he would never make it out of such an evil addiction. Why should I ask myself to make it make sense when it doesn’t at all. It is a part of holding grief in one pocket and life in the other as it continues to shape itself and move around me. And today my pockets feel heavy.

As I think about becoming a parent, losing a parent feels like every emotion I’ve ever felt all at the same time. It’s joyful and it’s hard, but it’s my journey that I want to walk with an open heart. The memories. The wounds. The hole that will only be patched with a layer of cloth.

Hands worn by the sun I can’t hold anymore. The moments I won’t share. The calls I won’t make. The questions I am left. The trauma I carry on but cannot. Coming to terms with starting a family without the family I’ve been familiar with since I joined the earth myself. It won’t replace the pain and yet there will be an immense amount of overwhelming joy that I get to experience. I will hold onto it with gratitude. I will move with steadiness when the “who will I lose next?” trails quietly behind me from a distance.

Surely time has passed. Surely I can feel like myself again. And yet I still don’t. So many glimpses of sadness and hope as time moves along, but I am still getting familiar with this new version of myself.

Every good thing that comes my way is a reminder that I have life to be grateful for and a reason to keep moving forward with love and with joy. It is also a reminder that my loss exists.

My hope is that it allows me to continue to show up and walk with others through their pain, better than I ever knew how to before.

No grief outweighs another and it’s more than okay that yours feels heavy right now. No amount of time takes away the realness of what you long for and what you have lost.