In The Spaces

I have been neglecting pretty much all of my social media as of late. Work has kept me more busy than I would like. I've been wanting to get back to the rest of my work, the processes that I have been in and making progress on, but actual job has been demanding more of me.

But I need to get back to this work too. It's important, and necessary.

I do find that I'm sharing more stories about my Dad these days. The more I have been able to talk about him with new people, people who... well, didn't know me when my Dad was around... I'm finding that I apparently had the best Dad on the planet. It creates this dichotomy where I miss him even more for being gone, but also appreciate the time even more because I do have this entire boatload of good memories to pull from.

There are these brief moments in my life where I have the space to actually think about my Dad in a conscious way. There are small, but they exist, and I still make room for them. I wish there was more ritual though. There's something missing in my closure (?) and I've yet to define that.

I've been thinking to go to a grief retreat in September, but on the flipside I'm not sure if I need to dwell, if that makes any sense. Still pondering that one.

My moments are brief these days. I'm doing what I can in the spaces in between.

Time Is Relative

The more I process, and watch others around me process, talk to people who have been through the same, it all comes down to the same thing... time. Time is required to not feel the loss so acutely. Time is what makes things bearable again. Time is what gives us distance from the intense emotions, what let's the bad fade from memory and the good stay even when the moments are gone.

Time.

We pass the time in the hopes that eventually it will do it's job, but it only goes so fast, good or bad. A day is a day, even if it feels like a moment. Einstein explained it as such: 

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.”

Loss feels like the hot stove. Sitting in it feels like torturous moments. But eventually even these moments will pass. I think we get concerned that over time, we will forget. But I don't think that's possible as long as we keep memories alive.

It sounds trite to say "Time heals all wounds". It doesn't. But it does give us the space to process and find a new path. I have to believe that it does let us become functional again.

Distraction Helps... Kinda

My everyday life has been a bit hectic lately, and I can't really say that's a bad thing. I'm one of those people that will have a weekend with no plans and by Friday night, I've got at least two things scheduled. I am social, I want to be out in the world, and I appreciate my friends and family immensely.

This weekend is a little different in that all of my activities seem to be crammed into Saturday. This is by design, I know I need some time to myself to prep myself for the upcoming week, get my house in order, all that jazz. But there is a tiny part of me that is dreading Sunday because when I have swaths of free time, I somehow come back to thinking about my Dad and how I don't get to share events with him in the same way anymore.

I also find that I want to somehow paint my grief, but then when I do I end up painting over it because I don't necessarily want or need that lingering on my walls. This insane process of getting through loss does, apparently, get more manageable over time, and I'm not sure I want to have some permanent reminder (except this blog) of how much this royally sucks.

Distraction. I need to both use it to my advantage and recognize that if I'm constantly distracting myself, I'm not letting myself heal as I need to.

Romanticized

I absolutely adore my Dad. I pretty much think he is the best man that I've ever known, that he is wise and taught me a whole ton of things about living a good life, that he has an unbelievable amount of patience, and that his love is absolutely infinite for everything and everyone.

All of these sentiments remain true, even after he is gone.

But I do wonder if I have romanticized his existence in my world a bit. And even if I have, is that a bad thing? I don't remember fighting much with my Dad. I remember laughing a lot, I remember kisses on the forehead before bed, and I remember swimming at the beach. I remember grocery trips and amusement parks and vacations. But I have an incredibly hard time recalling anything negative... occasionally exasperation at my childhood antics, but as an adult I look at those moments and ponder how it was never more than a sigh or rolled eyes.

I'm not sure if he really was just the best man that I have ever known, or perhaps will ever know, or if I just had this amazing relationship that appears to be something of a rarity in the world these days. I hope my daughter looks to her Dad with the same wide-eyed wonder that I still look to my Dad with.

I suppose it could be colored by not wanting to remember bad things, but I've really been struggling with the idea that one of the best people I've ever known is gone, so I've been trying to find the flaws. I'm sure he had them, I'm positive he did, but I'm finding it near impossible to think of any.

So even if it is romanticized, even if it's some rose-colored glasses I'm wearing, it is still my truth, and I'm sticking with it.

Plants As A Tool

Serendipity, coincidence, the stars aligning, who knows, but this post earlier today from Crow's Daughter comes at a very relevant time in my life. Lately I've been talking to a friend of mine about plants and herbs and their properties, even going so far as to consider an herbology course.

I tend to think of plants as healers of the physical world, but in reading her post, I have to consider that our physical affects our mental, and vice versa. Perhaps some healing plants would help shake loose the grief that I'm wearing like a shroud these days. There is far more in my life than just the death of my Dad, but it definitely colors my world on a daily basis in a way that I had not anticipated.

I am still in the process of finding tools to get through the rough patches (Dad related or not) and plants as medicine is something I believe in. Not in replacement of Western medicine, but as a supplement to, and in many cases doing far more for my health and wellness than pills ever did. I have certainly felt connected to certain things in the natural world (a specific tree where I live, for example), and the vast majority of people can't help by smile when they see trees changing color or flowers blooming.

Plants also go through natural cycles that we can learn much from and may be better off aligning ourselves with. Taking periods of rest, blooming with wild abandon at others, and creating deep roots when we have found ourselves in a safe space. I've seen plants take over concrete structures and change the very ground beneath us, so I find a wisdom in these green things that cover our planet.

Some comfrey tea may be exactly what I need to let myself heal and remind myself that death is a natural part of life. And that we all return to the Earth from which we came... and that is not a bad thing at all.

Up and Down

Grief is not this linear process, where once you go through the stages (ha, see here), you are suddenly free and clear of feeling the negatives. It does come in waves. Mostly I've been in a high, personally and professionally, and it's been a good thing, and would have been a good thing regardless of circumstances.

But then you stumble across the most random things and then...

I was going through my phone a few days ago, and there was a video from a trip that family took last summer. Saying goodbye to my paternal grandmother, spreading ashes, saying hello (and goodbye) to some family haunts. I had recorded a video of the location that had been my favorite in my trips, and was babbling on about the scenery. At the very tail end of the video, faintly, I hear my Dad talking to my kid.

My Dad saying my kid's nickname. Saying my name too.

It all came back, and anger over things like not taking his picture there, or having a recording of his voice on purpose, self-blame and judgment for not saving voice mails, it just flooded me to this point of being frozen.

I listened to that video fifteen times in a row. Over and over, just a few short words, not even directed at me, and since it was unplanned I cut it off at that point, probably to tend to whatever was needed in the moment, and now kicking myself for not recording longer, for not even suspecting that it would be one of the last recordings (possibly the last recording) I would have of my Dad's voice.

Five seconds that caused me to crash into that place of grief. Back to anger and acceptance and back again.

I feel lucky to have found it. I feel sad that I didn't record more. I feel happy that even that little piece exists. A blessing in a way, but I wanted more.

We all wanted more more more.

New Things Are Weird

In this new reality, I have recently received an offer for a new job. Nothing I was explicitly looking for, but it will be good for me and mine.

Sharing the excitement about the job with family is part of the... well, excitement. But there was something, someone, decidedly missing this time around. To not be able to call my Dad about the job itself, or after the interview, or when I accepted... It just felt off. His personal encouragement and advice was missing from a narrative that has always previously been there.

In spite of all that, I could still hear his voice when I looked for parental approval. My Mom has it in spades and was, perhaps, doubly encouraging, but I could still somewhat hear what my Dad would say in this new adventure. Things about being positive, showing them what I know, learning from others, being proud of me. All things I've heard before, so it was a memory that I can latch on to.

It's just different, weird, not really being able to share it in the moment. I know it's the new normal, but it still doesn't feel normal. I still wanted to tell him about it, and hear his voice literally, not in my head.

Of course this is going to continue to happen, and I'm going to have to look to memories about what my Dad would say about various new adventures in my world. Thankfully I have many to choose from and can piece it together as needed. But it still won't ever be the same.

Falling Off

In 2006, the family went on a cruise to Mexico. There were a few stops along the way, and one of the things my Dad and I did together was parasailing and then we rented a jet ski after and rode out. My Dad was driving and I sat behind him, listening to him laugh with complete joy as we went over the wakes of others, as he pushed the machine faster, as we bounced and got sprayed and, again, joyous laughter from us both.

At one point he stopped the jet ski, and asked me over his shoulder if I was ready for it to go as fast as it could. There was nothing but open water. We could see the shore, boats were around, but no one would be in our way. I nodded, and he turned the handle to accelerate.

I held on tight, closed my eyes, laughed, got sprayed, and eventually got bounced right off the jet ski. He turned around to get me but in trying to get me up, he fell off of it himself. Together we struggled a good 20 minutes to get back onto that machine, still smiling but getting tired. Finally the owner of the place we rented it from came out. He got my Dad on the jet ski, put me on the boat, and back to the shore we went.

By the time we got back on the cruise ship, we were both exhausted. No blame, no unhappiness, just 'damn, that ending was harsh'. Pretty certain we both napped for a few hours before dinner.

I don't know that either of us ever told anyone how much we both struggled that afternoon just trying to get back on the jet ski. I think I blamed the sun for my exhaustion (a valid excuse), but I didn't want to ruin the rest of the fun we had by telling people about the less-than-stellar ending. The three hours we had together on the ocean was the part to be remembered, it was what mattered, it was where the joy was. The end was just... harder than we expected, and it meant it was time to pack it in.

I have told a few people about the last few days with my Dad, but in general I haven't gone into any great detail. It's unnecessary. It may diminish the other 40-plus years somehow, in other people's minds. They might remember this 'harsh ending', whereas I want to remember all the fun stuff, the things that are worth remembering. It's not that the ending isn't to be discussed, endings are important after all, but it is so very far from the whole story.

That jet ski ending doesn't capture a day that included bartering on the streets, or grabbing a pineapple smoothie, or being dipped in the water while parasailing, or laying out on the beach, or feeling the spray of the water as we went faster and faster on the jet ski, or hearing the truest joyous laugh for a solid thirty minutes. The end doesn't capture all of it, it just describes the briefest part of an event. And it certainly doesn't capture all the fun that was had.

Grief Is Natural... In A Group

Upworthy recently put this story up about grief in the animal kingdom. As I read through it, I kept coming back to how there were groups of animals mourning. It was not just one individual mourning for another and then moving on solo, the animals generally have a herd or a flock or a pod to move forward with.

When we have the wake or the memorial or the funeral or the ash-spreading or whatever we do... We tend to do that as a group. There is community, there is family, there is someone to hold you up and vice versa in those tremendous moments of loss. But then life goes back to how it was (sort of). Our society has changed so much that we don't live together or even near each other anymore, so if we're not processing our lives together, I suppose we can't be expected to process our deaths together either.

This means that we individually process our grief. There may be phone calls and visits with friends that include tears, but for the most part it does seem that our true grief is alone, in quiet moments, in too early hours, in songs played on the radio. No one can speed that process up, nor should they, but when you do it alone over and over and over, it starts to become part of your own narrative.

Currently I'm living in this place of grief. There are other things happening in my life, but I know that conversations continually come back to my Dad right now, because that is what I am working on. But no one else in my current bubble is in it with me. They can honor it and listen to it and be with me through it, and I am grateful grateful grateful for that. But the mourning has been primarily on my own. I don't know if that would be true if I was with family during this time. Perhaps I would speak more to them about the mourning and the missing and the grieving parts and that would allow me to speak to my friends about other things because I wouldn't be looking for a social outlet for my grief, for a community to support me in it. Family would be that community. Family needs to be that support. We have each other, we need to be able to get through the grief together as well.

The Little Things

My Dad liked accessories. Cufflinks, rings, watches, tie clips, etc. One of the things that happened when he died was that I was the one that took off his last remaining piece of jewelry. The rest had been removed over time due to medical procedures or just by virtue of things no longer fitting correctly. But after he died, he still had this one ring on. I took it off of him, and because he always wore it, there was no 'place' for it.

I have worn it ever since.

These trinkets, these little things, he had quite a few of them. Slowly some of them are finding new homes. Some people really want these mementos, some people know they are just things, and there's the in between, like me, where I know he's not in the ring, but it still means something. It triggers memories (good ones), and it does make me feel closer to him in a way.

All of these mementos do seem to matter in the end. Things that I didn't really think about while on his person, but they strike up vivid memories of him when I look down and see something so simple as a ring, a watch, in my possession. It's reminder that he is no longer here, and yet always here, all at once.

The little things become the big things, because they have become the only things. Except for the memories... and the little things that keep the memories alive, I want to keep those close to me.

The Wisdom of Elders

I delved a little bit into triggers, but there's one thing that I've been actively avoiding, and that is the memorial DVD of my Dad. It's not even the pictures so much as the music, because it reminds me so intensely of those last days, of watching both my parents say goodbye in their way.

My heart broke for my Mom as much as it broke for me, and that's something we don't really talk about in the world of adult child grief. There's the surviving parent that you want to protect and help and comfort, all while going through your own process of losing a parent. This is when being a plane ride away has been the absolute hardest.

We talk often, my Mom and I, and I am very grateful for the relationship that we have. If anything, this experience has brought us closer. But now I find myself missing her more than I ever did. Like she's so near and so far away. And in that, I feel very helpless. Helpless to help her, and helpless in letting her help me with her wisdom of how to deal with this. She has had the experience of losing a parent (parents), and I think her wisdom could be invaluable. But I am still protective of her, and as she has pointed out, maybe I do hold back in processing with her.

When we separate ourselves from our elders, family or otherwise, we separate ourselves from the wisdom that they have to offer. And when they are gone, the wisdom leaves with them, whatever has not been passed on already.

I am thankful that my Dad was full of wisdom and, because he chose his moments, when he did share wisdom we all listened intently. Now, with one parent remaining, I find myself wanting to be near here not only for the reason of being near her (because she's awesome), but to get that wisdom laid on me as well. I don't want to miss anything.

Please Talk About Him

There's this weird phenomena that keeps happening in my world and that is... People don't like to talk about my Dad with me. Or, when I bring up an anecdote about him, they get this sad look on their face.

I'm really hoping this goes away in time, but I fear it won't.

I had 40-plus years with him as a foundation of my life. Someone to talk to, lean on, laugh with, tease, make jokes with, share experiences with. Those 40 years did not disappear when he died. Actually, they've become even more important for me to share because it's my way of keeping his spirit alive. I fear things like forgetting his voice or his laugh, so I find myself actively bringing up memories or stories probably even more than I used to, for my own benefit. I need the people in my world to be a part of that, to let me share and to laugh or remember with me.

Gone most definitely does not mean forgotten.

Being one of the first of my friends to go through this experience, losing a parent at a reasonably 'expected' age, has been a bit of a challenge. The ones I do know that have lost a parent, it happened decades ago, and their grief is slightly different because they were younger when they experienced it. They have also very much gotten used to life without that parent as a presence. I am grateful that I have the support of my close friends, but acquaintances really have no idea what to say or do when he is mentioned, or they inadvertently mention their own father and then have the reminder that mine is no longer with me.

Part of my process has been to talk about him with whomever, whenever it's appropriate. I'm not randomly forcing him into conversation, but if it's relevant, I have no qualms about sharing him with others. And that look that crosses their faces, the obvious discomfort, it makes me think that I should stop sharing. But I can't, and I won't.

The experience of loss is something that every single one of us will feel at some point, and one of the ways that I have found to get through it for myself, to not feel it as this intense hole in my heart, is to still talk about him. I'm sure people fear saying 'the wrong thing', but that ends up in action being that they don't say anything at all, or they steer the conversation away from topics that might include mention of loss or death or fathers. I ask that if you have someone close to you experiencing loss, let them talk about their loved one. Let them share that person with you. It may very well be the way that they are keeping that person alive in their hearts. Ask questions about their life. Share your own anecdotes about your loved ones, alive or dead. Keep connecting in that way, because it helps me stay connected as well.

Triggers

I am ill-prepared for the things that will set me off mentally to thinking about my Dad no longer being with us. Initially I thought that the ring of his that I now wear would be a trigger, but it's become something that is a reminder of his life and who he was. It does not make me sad or drop me into that place of missing him so much. Pictures are the same. They are around the house, I say hello to him every morning and every night, but again, it's a reminder of his life. It makes me feel more like everything is 'normal', that before place. I don't dwell on missing him, or his absence.

But then some song will come on the radio that reminds me of him, or of his relationship with my Mom, or some random thing that has nothing really to do with him, and I'm thrown immediately into a funk, into that place of acute missing. I wish I could identify what those triggers are so I could either a) put myself into immersion therapy or b) avoid them all entirely.

As a surviving family member, we have to find ways to carry on with our lives, but those triggers act almost as hidden traps. It is so easy to get lost in them when one shows up, and to let ourselves live in the past when everything was as I thought it should be. I don't actually know that it's a bad thing to let myself feel the loss acutely, but I know that it still takes my breath away and stops me in my tracks. He is not a phone call or plane ride away anymore. This thought most recently triggered by my new-to-me car having the same fake leather kind of wheel as the car he taught me how to drive on did.

A steering wheel left me sitting in a parking lot for ten minutes before I felt I was actually in control of myself enough to drive again.

This is part of the process. When those items or songs or events cause me to take a breath and be hit over the head with the knowledge, yet again, that my Dad is no longer with us, I sit in it and give myself permission to grieve. I also give myself permission to take the space to think about that trigger and use it to bring forward a happy memory, the reason the trigger might have existed in the first place. I give myself permission to let a heart-wrenching moment turn into a fond and grateful reliving of experience and memory.

So I suppose neither immersion or avoidance is my plan of attack. I will accept these triggers as they come as reminders of how lucky I am to have had a father that was so loving and kind that his absence is palpable to me. I will use these triggers as a reason to be grateful in my sadness.

Expected But Never Desired

Truth be told, I am fortunate that I had nearly 41 years with my Dad in my life. I absolutely recognize that I am one of the lucky ones, that my Dad was there nearly every day for the first 17 years, and was only a phone call away the remainder of the time. There were trips and talks and memories, so many memories. And as a family we had end of life talks while people were of sound mind and body, because that is what responsible people do. Death has never been scary or not to be discussed, but even in that, it's still not something that anyone is actively rooting for.

As an adult of about 30-plus, you do start to come to grips with mortality, including that of your parents. And to be honest, if you hit 30, and your parents are around 60, you think 'hey, I can probably accept this... I'm a grown-up, they've done their job, I'm doing mine'. You do find ways to expect this particular outcome. At some point.

What I was ill-prepared for was the reality of it. The concerned phone calls from my family. The need to get on a plane as quickly as possible because there's something unknown but decidedly bad happening. More phone calls. The lack of pictures. The fast decline. The realization that the last time I heard my Dad's voice, I didn't know it was going to be the last time.

Expected. But never desired.

I wept multiple times when the reality of no cures, no surgeries, nothing short of miracles changing the outcome... when those hit me, that was the first series of waves. Wondering if I would be able to catch whatever the last flight out was, hoping that he would wait for me to see him. Hoping that he would recognize me in his way.

He did, even at 1am, both of us bleary-eyed him and him no longer speaking. There was recognition. I am so very grateful for that, for those last few days where I know he knew me, where there was no doubt that he knew my Mom. My Dad has always had the kindest eyes, and they spoke volumes when his voice no longer did.

I am one of the lucky ones. I had the ability to catch the flight, see him again, and even say 'see you later' (because goodbye never crossed my mind). I held his hand while he took his last breath, a last breath that we expected for nearly twelve hours. Expected, but never ever desired.

Nothing prepares you for that. Even when it is expected. But in my wildest moments, it was never ever ever desired.

The Five Stages

Yup, here we go. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s often cited 'five stages of grief' are as such: 
- Denial & Isolation
 - Anger
 - Bargaining
 - Depression
 - Acceptance

These various stages were first posited by her in the book On Death and Dying (1969). Nearly 50 years later and we have done very little new in the way of looking at the process of grief. The kicker for me, however, is that Kübler-Ross’s interviews that generated these five stages were done with terminally ill patients themselves.

What this means is that these steps of grief were specific to people who were literally losing themselves. This is not grief for a loved one, but grief of the knowledge that one would cease to be in this world. I have to imagine that the grieving process is somewhat different for those of us that have lost someone significant, because we are sitting with the memories of our loved one. We are the ones that have to face new experiences without them. We are the ones that can no longer pick up the phone or have a Skype session with our parent just to chat. We are the ones that live with the memory of the good moments, and the bad moments, and the should have been moments. 

Our grief is not about losing ourselves, but of losing a connection. That loss of connection does not go away or get filled by another so much as it becomes like sea-glass, beginning as jagged and rough, but over time it gets smoothed over. I anticipate that this hole I feel is something that will dull over time, but it will never be a thing that goes away entirely.

Acceptance. That's the only one of the stages that I feel the survivors really have to get through for emotional health. The rest is for those that are losing themselves. We are the ones that simply have to accept the outcome.

And we're supposed to act like nothing happened...

When my Dad passed away, I took one week off of work.

I remember thinking when I got back into the office, a scant seven days after saying a final "See you soon Daddy", that this was all kinds of wrong. How was I supposed to go back to life without him like nothing had happened? How could I not be given the same amount of time to grieve as I was given to welcome my child into the world, two events that are very much related in how they alter your reality?

Paid family leave, limited as it may be in the States, is an acknowledgement that when a life-changing event such as an addition to your family occurs, there is an adjustment period. A time to figure out the new normal. Space to freak out, cry, laugh uncontrollably, stay up weird hours, and share time with friends and family to welcome the new addition.

When I stepped back into my office, I wanted that same amount of time to do all of that in reverse. A week was not even remotely close enough to figuring out 'the new normal'. I didn't get the space or the privacy to truly grieve before needing to pretend like that loss never happened for 40+ hours a week.

Our lives don't stop, nor should they, when someone close to us dies. But I do believe that we need to acknowledge that a significant change has happened, and allow ourselves time to fully figure out how we are to proceed when we are travelling into the unknown that is a world without our loved one. The loss most definitely does not feel like 'nothing happened'.

The Waves

I came up with the title of this blog based on a post I had seen be an Internet stranger, someone that was addressing grief. Basically they talked about how at first, the waves of grief are overwhelming, like 100 foot waves that knock you down and turn you sideways, and how they keep coming over and over... And that over time, those waves maybe are only 80 feet tall... and then they stop coming quite so often. But occasionally a 100 foot wave will come out of nowhere, or we can see it coming with a trigger, and that we eventually learn to ride those waves...

Four months out and while the waves do not come as often, they are for sure of the 100 foot variety.

Separately, I feel that I have tried to keep my grief at something of a distance. I still have familial responsibilities. There are bills to pay, a kid to raise, friends to socialize with, life to live. And I highly doubt that anyone or anything I am grieving wants me to stop living my life. But there is a space where I keep my grief separate from the rest of my person, my psyche. And occasionally that personified bit of grief waves to me, reminds me that it is there, that it will wait for as long as it needs to but that it's not going away.

Yesterday was one of those days, and that is how this blog was born.

I do not need to shut my grief down so much as I need to honor and embrace it, so that I can let it go. This blog is my way of accepting my loss, and working through what it means not only for myself but my family as well. This blog is me waving back to my grief, acknowledging it's existence, so that I can get through it, and appreciate the journey all the more.

The End As Beginning

Grief.

What a fun and uplifting topic for a blog! Why would someone voluntarily write random things on the Internet about what amounts to one of the saddest topics on the planet?

Because I'm in the midst of it. And I couldn't find the kind of outlet or guidance I needed, which is to say, the journey of my own experience. The bizarre thing is that my experience is wholly non-unique. It actually fits within the realm of not only possible but probable. The death of an elder parent.

At some point I'll go through the whole story of how my Dad came to pass from this realm to the next, but I don't know that I'm ready to share that yet. What I am ready to share is this...

My life, everyone's lives most likely, are divided into segments. We look back at events and there is the time BEFORE and the time AFTER. Before high school graduation, and after. Before we met our spouse, and after. Before we had a child, or bought a house, or started that dream job, and after. And at this point, my life is very clearly divided into the time before my Dad passed away, and after.

So far, the after... sucks. I have no other word to describe what it feels like to have someone removed from your life after 41 years of them always being there. My anger is not directed at anything other than cancer, but this absence of someone I admired and respected and connected with for so long (and so well), that hole that I feel on the daily... yeah, it sucks.

This is a new beginning, even if it's one that I didn't want... even when I know that if all goes right in the world, this is actually the natural order of things. It's something I have to accept, and so I will. Perhaps there are others out there that can help me get through this journey, or perhaps I can help others as they go through it as well.

Welcome to the beginning of life after my Dad.