1,721 days later

My father has been dead for over 4 years, 1,721 days to be exact. You would think that by now I would be better or “fixed” but in reality: the culture surrounding grief is fucked. Nobody really knows how to handle it and many people chalk it up to “I’m sorry”. Megan Devine, author of It’s OK That You’re Not OK does an amazing job of dissecting grief and showing how skewed this culture has made it. Grief is looked at as a gross tumor implanted in peoples lives when they lose someone they love, however, now I see it as something that makes me who I am.

I don’t see the culture surrounding grief changing soon but I urge you to consider what you say when you speak to a grieving person. Devine also has a great example from her book that discusses the second half of the sentence situation. If someone you know has lost someone you might want to say “oh but you had him for so long (so stop feeling so bad)” or “he’s in a better place (so stop feeling so bad)”. This second part of the sentence is never really spoken but can often be implied or taken into account by the grieving person. I know every time I heard “your dad is in a better place” I wanted to sucker punch that person because what better place could my dad want to be in than seeing me grow up?

One of my very dear friends, Bri told me the most important piece of advice I’ve ever heard in my life a few days after my dad died. She said, people will say stupid things but you don’t have to listen, they only mean well. This is to say, it’s okay to try to comfort grieving people, most of them need and crave support during this time but again, I urge you to think before you speak. You may mean well and have all of those intentions in mind but also be sure to listen to the grieving person and make sure they feel heard. It’s tough dealing with a grieving person, I know the people surrounding me saw the worst come out. I was angry, upset, threw tantrums, and was sad.

Even now, if someone says they lost their dad or someone close to them it feels awkward even coming from me, someone who lost my dad! It’s okay to feel awkward, it’s okay to not know what to say and it’s OKAY to say you don’t know what to say. It’s often better to be honest than try to string together words you think might help.

One of the hardest periods of grief for me was what I like to call holding the hands of people who were grieving my grief. In short, what this means to me is that you tell someone your dad is dead and they get very emotional. I used to think it wasn’t fair that people at work could cry when I told them my dad died but I couldn’t. It made me so angry that THEY were crying about MY dad. A part of me has now learned that was my defense mechanism against holding onto my grief and not letting others have it. I also now know that if you share the burden of grief with someone you trust, often they are willing to hold on to some of the load while you take a break.

I am learning to make amends with myself and the pain that I have endured. I am learning that it is not my fault that I am sad, it is not my fault that I have done horrible terrible things to myself in order to feel some sense of peace and order for a short time. I have tried to starve the grief, harm the grief, drown the grief, and now I am realizing the only way to really help it is to make peace with it. I am forgiving myself and forgiving my dad for leaving. I now realize, four years later that the pain that I hold on to, the pain that I thought kept my dad alive in my mind is unnecessary and hurting me more than I could imagine.

There is no silver lining because of this situation, I did not gain anymore strength than I already possessed. I do not think this made me a better person, in fact, the first few years I was a terrible friend, daughter, and sister. I was not strong, I was not fearless, I was scared. I think a part of me is still scared and will always be a little bit frightened.

I asked my therapist what “healing” really meant as a word. I have been studying psychology for almost four years and want to continue my education further. I have the word “healing” tattooed on my chest and yet I sat on her couch and did not understanding anything about the actual word. The definition of healing states. “The process of making or becoming sound or healthy again”. But what does sound or healthy even mean? How do I know when healing starts and stops? How do I know what I need to heal from? These are all questions I am working on answering and the first step often is recognizing what aches and pains you have.

Grief changes you from a biological and cognitive standpoint. You will never be the same person you were before you lost someone close to you. The best way to help is to learn how to adapt. Be flexible in your grief, be weird in your grief, but please never ever be afraid of showing your grief. You don’t have to buy into the saying that “everything happens for a reason” or that “they are in a better place”. Those are phrases created to put a bandaid on a bullet wound. With grief, the only way out is through even if that takes years. You cannot “fix” grief, you can only grow around it.

An interesting metaphor that can be used to describe this thought is a box with a blob inside. Picture your grief as the blob inside of the box. As you grow, the box gets bigger but the blob stays the same size. You learn to adapt and grow from the grief but the blob isn’t leaving the box and that’s okay. You don’t have to grow from your grief or make it some kind of strength you carry like armor, but there is a certain point where you need to let your box grow. The blob isn’t leaving, you are just adding experiences to lessen the size in comparison.

I could go on forever about grief but my parting words will say that it is okay that you don’t feel like you’re doing well because of your loss. I’m writing to let you know it’s normal, it’s human, it’s natural. I am also writing this for myself to let myself know it’s okay to be sad and it’s okay to not be sad. It’s okay to be angry and it’s okay to not be angry. You will go through phases and you will feel things differently. Reach out if you need help, there are so many resources. Just because their story ended, does not mean yours has to end too.