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 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.