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.