Grief: One Year On

It has been a little over a year since my Dad died unexpectedly. There is a hollowness inside me that only seems to get bigger each year, spreading, gaping like a black hole, taking bits of me inside it and spitting them back out. Different.

I want to be graceful and positive in my grief, but all I have to say is that time does not heal all wounds; that is a lie.

Sometimes I feel as though I’m an expert on grief– like, after a year of grieving and not doing much else, it is all I know and feel. But a year is so short. In reality, I don’t know a thing.

The scariest part is forgetting and not knowing. I can’t remember what his laugh sounded like, I don’t know what his childhood dreams were, what he was most proud of me for, what he was scared of. Losing a parent is a harsh reminder that one day we’ll be alone; I don’t feel old enough to not have a Dad. I’m not old enough to navigate life without him yet.

Perhaps that is the harshness of life though, we never feel old enough to do anything without someone else to guide us.

When he first died, it didn’t feel real, I was in that numb, sweet state of grief where you feel like you can grab life by the throat and do it all. I could run marathons and climb mountains in his name, I could make art and play the piano and smell the roses. But then, the grief hits you and it’s all-consuming.

I’m very cynical about it, I think, but it’s exhausting trying to be positive about it all the time. It is tiring pretending that a dead parent is like a broken arm- it does not heal after a few weeks in a cast. I don’t think it heals at all, you just get used to moving in a different way. It takes a bit of the childlike wonder you still have away.

My Dad died 13 months and 9 days ago, and it hurts more every day. I do not feel graceful in my grief. I feel exhausted and confused and scared. But that is okay too.

Grief and death are so taboo, it’s so uncomfortable to discuss, it’s the awkwardness of not knowing what to say to make it better, not wanting to acknowledge that someday you will experience it too, and the secret, guilty thankfulness that it’s not you.

Why are we so scared to talk about death? Why do we hide it inside of us and only let it out when we’re alone? Why do we move on and pretend like it never happened?

It doesn’t make it better to pretend that my Dad isn’t dead when I’m around people's parents, to not mention him, just to spare the uncomfortableness of remembering he’s dead. I don’t want to reduce him to that. If someone says they like golf, I want to say my Dad did too, without it all coming back to the fact he is dead.

Yes, my Dad is dead. But he is so much more than that- he always has been and he always will be. I don’t want to pretend like he was never here just because we reduce people to only their deaths.

I am a completely different person without my Dad. I’m still discovering if that’s a good or bad thing. I don’t think it really matters though; it is what it is. All I really know is that it stems from how much I loved him- my Dad meant the world to me and losing him destroyed me.

Losing him is destroying me.

Maybe in one year, I will be completely different from who I am now. Grief is one of the biggest catalysts for evolution, in my opinion. It’s so slow, so confusing, you take one step forward and five steps back. You don’t cry for two weeks and then you cry every day for a month. I want to tell everyone that grief doesn’t stop after the funeral, even though people think you’ll move on then. You don’t. Every day is a new, uphill battle, but the thing about climbing is you get stronger, more resilient.

I feel like I’m losing right now, but I’m hopeful in a year I will know more.

I’m hopeful that in a year I can tell you that I have learned to cope a little bit better. I’m hopeful everyone grieving will carry their loss a little lighter, but never stop carrying it completely, so they’re still here too.