Are you ok? How are you? I’m here for you. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. Your dad is in a better place. He's so proud of you. I want to help you. I'm so sorry. These words flood my screen, my days, and my head. I've heard it so many times I've almost gone numb, people expect me to cry all the time, and then I feel guilty for not crying. I get scared people might think if I don’t cry too much, that my dad wasn’t as important to me as he was.
Grief, in general, is a difficult concept to wrap your head around, especially when you’re so young. You don’t know if you are doing it right, but you also don’t want to fall behind everyone your age, who continues growing and living. Those who are getting those internships, planning those trips, having those nights out, and you are stuck with an unsettling feeling in your stomach. If I am too happy, I feel sad because how could I be so happy and so ok after just losing my dad? If I am too sad, I feel like I am wasting my youth, and I can’t spend it all crying in my room. Nothing seems to feel just right.
Every moment is so volatile and that is what makes it so difficult. One moment I am buying myself Wendy's at the airport, the next I have tears in my eyes because I saw a group of men in suits on a business trip, just like my dad used to do. One moment, I am having a beautiful beach day swimming in the ocean, the next I am screaming at the sky because my brother and mom keep getting signs that I cannot seem to see or feel. One moment, I am having the best spring break of my life, the next I am holding back tears because spring break is the last time I saw my dad before his cardiac arrest, and this could be the last time I see my mom.
That’s the most terrifying thing. I had no idea. No idea when my dad dropped me off at the airport crying as I reached security, that the next I saw him would be hooked up to tubes in the ICU. No idea that the last time I was on the phone with him, it would be our last. It hurts.
Even though I had almost two years with him in the hospital, I feel this sense of jealousy over others who got to have that final conversation with their deceased loved one knowing it was the last one. It is not that I do not think it was so exorbitantly hard for them, and that I don’t feel so devastated for them and their loss. But, just that I wish my dad and I knew we were having our last conversation, so I could have remembered if I said I love you to him that night, and to coherently hear him say it back. So, he could leave me with some last piece of wisdom.
I have been reading a book about grief and losing young, and it has been helping me. One of the grief specialists discussed how grief starts the moment you hear the diagnosis. In many ways, I have been grieving and in grief since April 15th, 2023. This discovery, no matter how simple it may sound, relieved something in my brain. I think many people expect me to feel all these intense emotions right now upon losing my dad, but I didn’t, instead, I felt relief. I lost my dad on April 15th, 2023, I just had hope that someday he would be able to return to me, and with every day that passed, every illness that occurred, and every hospital visit that added up, my hope began to dwindle.
I don’t claim to understand grief and I don’t believe I ever will. It is everchanging, it is not one moment of pain, it is constant, that pain is always there deep down no matter the day you are having, good or bad. But, in a way, that is kind of beautiful, because that pain you feel of grief is just a reminder of the love you have for the deceased, so I am ok with feeling that pain every day knowing I loved and still do love my dad to infinity and beyond.
Yours Truly,
Cara
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