Grief

I have thought a lot about dying. I worry about my husband and son afterward. I don’t fear my actual death. Weird.

My dad had a horrible death. To recap: He died after a month in ICU following elective same day surgery. We had to remove life support.

I don’t think you can describe grief until you have lived it. It is physically painful. My body hurt. My mind never settled. The first year was horrible. Dad died ten days before his birthday. That along with Thanksgiving and Christmas that followed shortly afterwards is just a blur in my mind. The first anything for the next year was a constant reminder that life would never be the same. I was numb.

Michael was not handling the grief well. I really couldn’t begin the process because I was so worried about him. After a concert at the school one night, I came home to find him sobbing on the floor. It was his turning point. It is how he was able to grieve.

My mom found solace with a woman friend she barely knew who had lost her husband a year earlier. This woman led her though the process. They are still best friends today and I was able to thank her at my mom’s 80^th birthday party two years ago. She helped my mom began her next stage of life. Mom created a new life. She still dreams about my dad every night. Sometimes they sit and talk about how things are going with everyone. Sometimes, he is just there. She feels she is still married to him though he is not physically present.

After the funeral, I never missed a day of work at the school. As I drove through the gates every morning, I told myself that they are paying me for my brain. I owed them to do a good job. As I drove out the gate every night, I would sob all the way home. Weekends were horrible. I hated vacations, holidays and summer vacation, as there was no work to keep me occupied.

Our decision to remove the live support haunted me. Driving to work one morning, I prayed that he would give me some sign that we had done the right thing. Something. Anything. There is an area near the watershed where my brother used to roam that my dad loved. On the way to work, I crossed a dam over this area and its body of water. As I looked at the water, there was a magnificent rainbow overhead. He loved rainbows.

Out loud, I said, “Okay. I got it. I miss you so much. Mom really misses you.”

About a year later, a mom of one of the high level piano kids came into my office to talk about a music department fundraising concert. She was a respected psychologist so after our business was concluded, she asked about my dad. She asked how I was doing.

I looked at her and said, “Sometime I wish we had had a horrible relationship because his death wouldn’t be so painful.”

She said something that I really took to heart: “I have people who come to see me who are paralyzed in their life. They can’t function. As we work together, I discover that it is usually due to a relationship with one of their parent’s, which can never be resolved. The parent is dead. You need to be grateful everyday for the rest of your life that you had such a magnificent, healthy, loving, adult relationship with your dad. It was his greatest gift to you. Feel the pain. Feel the loss and I promise you that you will come out on the other end of the grief with a deeper love for him and mentally healthy.”

Slowly, I remember physically putting one foot in front of the other to function: Work, grocery shopping, paying bills, life. After awhile I would sometimes forget to have to keep moving. Finally, I was able to function in the world but it took a whole lot longer to settle his death in my body.

I always remember to talk about him with my mom. Everyone but us seems to be uncomfortable talking about him so she and I do so often. This past Father’s Day, I told her that Michael and I had shared many memories about dad.

The school mom was right. It did take a long time but I did finally come out of the deep grief so much wiser. I am a person living well with a bad diagnosis due to the many lessons I learned going through the death and grieving process for my dad. Even in death, he still taught me lessons.