April 8th, 2017
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Gonzaga Two

My Dad At A Gonzaga Rally 

Dear Faithful Friends:

Excuse my French, but as the title of this post suggests, grief does suck.

I haven’t been on social media very much lately though it’s not for lack of trying.  Since my Dad’s death in February, I can’t tell you how many times I have tried to sit down and write something but all the words get balled up.

I know I am stating the obvious but it needs to be said.  When you call something what it is, you bring it out into the open.  Maybe it just sits in your heart for awhile but it’s step one of dealing with it.

You call it.  You claim it. You own it.  You embrace it.  Of course, that’s when the pain starts and then you want to stop feeling it and working through it.  That’s okay.  Take a break.  Grief may not allow you take a break but you can always try.

Bit by bit.  Step by step.  Day by day.

Grief definitely messes with your head and in my case I’ve been having difficulty putting my thoughts together and stringing them in a sentence so that they make sense.

As I am typing the words, I think I am making sense, but then I go back and read what I have written and I say to myself, “What is this supposed to mean?  What are you trying to say?”

This is why grief sucks.

A person that you love so much, a person you care about so totally, is now dead and you will never see them again, talk to them again or touch them again.  You miss them immediately.

What’s a person to do now, right?

I now try to start each day, quietly gathering my thoughts and praying for strength to get myself into a positive groove.  But somehow as the day goes along, thoughts about my Dad pop into my brain like mini news alerts and then I fall out of the groove.  What happens is I temporarily loose my train of thought and then I have to try and yank myself back to real life.

Such as the time this week when I was talking on the phone at work to someone who knew my Dad very well and she was talking about the way he did business and then I started to picture him talking on the phone in his office and imagining the way he would talk and gesture and while I was sitting at my desk I could feel the tears rolling down my face.

I take a lot of pride in not loosing it this way in the office and I had to turn away from the door of my office and make sure that no one could see my face.  As soon as I got off the phone I went to the Ladies Room and cried some more and then washed my face and stood there taking a few deep breaths until I had everything back under control.

This is why grief sucks.

You are left with all of these feeling and no matter how many times you talk about them, they don’t go away when you want them to.  They just stay there and then they disappear for awhile and then they just ache because the finality of what has happened is sinking in and you know that’s it.

It’s a lot to handle.  It’s a lot to figure out.

This is why grief sucks.

When my husband died in 2003, my grief then was sudden, terrifying and raw.  While my Dad died in hospice care, my husband died in his sleep at home.  At that time, I spent all of my energy directed towards raising our young son, working hard to keep a roof over our heads and staying mentally calm.

My Dad’s death has been different and has affected me in ways I couldn’t predict.  A primal connection has been broken.  Very few people know you from the time of your birth to your present age.  Usually your parents are some of those people and losing my Dad is huge in so many way for me and my family.

Also, as our family prepared for our Dad’s funeral services, I wrote his obituary and eulogy which thankfully one of my brothers helped me deliver.  In researching my Dad’s accomplishments, I saw the breath and depth of my Dad’s life and the bigger picture of what he achieved and the legacy he left behind.

When he was alive, I was aware of all of these things that he did with his wonderful life and I made sure to compliment him on them and tell him numerous times how amazing I thought he and his accomplishments were.  But without him around while I was writing about these things, his life gained a different kind of depth and it made me miss him even more.

I know it will get better and I am waiting for things to feel a little less raw but for now grief sucks.  It really and truly does.

Thanks so much for listening and for all of your support and I hope that in my sharing I have helped someone else feel less alone in their grief.

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