Beautiful mess of grief

Ah, the best laid plans. Monday was a new start, fresh week, time to get back to life. At least that was the plan. What did Monday really look like? I walked around like a zombie within my own home not sure what to do-there was lots to do I just couldn’t figure out where to start and didn’t have the motivation to do any of it anyway. I ended up driving to town in a stupor, picked my son up from school, he drove me home and I went to sleep. When my daughter got home from work I apologized, I had nothing out for dinner and I had been 100% unproductive all day. She said “one step at a time mom”! How brilliant is that? So Tuesday I took her advice, I had to write myself a list of what needs to be done and do them one step at a time. Sounds really productive right? Well it was, but the list consisted of all the little mundane daily things like shower, brush teeth, take medication, eat, take out meat for dinner, put mascara on, empty the dishwasher. It was like learning to walk again. In the midst of all these mundane things I have moments of sobbing and moments of smiling at the sunshine. This morning I woke with a wonderful sense of happiness feeling like I could take on more than the mundane. I was able to do all the mundane without a list and I added 2 work tasks to a list.

Each day since losing dad my feelings contradict themselves in such a beautiful messy way.

• I want to sleep for the next 10 years but I don’t want to fall asleep because that means I have to face the next day without him and reality slams you in the gut as soon as you open your eyes.
• I am so happy for dad to be free of pain and with my brother but I am so sad for myself and everyone else who loved him because now we have the pain
• I am so angry I want to throw things, I am angry at cancer, I am angry at God yet I feel such a sense of peace and thankfulness that God answered my prayers to take him quickly and peacefully whenever he was ready, I look out the window at the beauty of the snow and feel peaceful.
• I wanted the service over so we could have closure but I didn’t want Saturday to end because then it’s really over.
• I want the comfort of family and friends but I don’t want to see them because it’s so sad to see their pain
• I want to question Gods timing but I also want his comfort and direction.

People say the more or prepared you are the easier it is. People are wrong. I had two years to prepare, there was nothing left unsaid, no rock unturned in the preparation process for me. I have no guilt, no regrets just a grand sense of being blessed for the time I had and how it all just happened as it was supposed to. My dad left this world feeling loved and knowing we would all be ok. He told us what he wanted and we made sure it happened. How much more prepared can you be? 

Well what I have learned is that having a service once a person is gone is not for the deceased, it’s for the family and friends left behind. When people say “ he is not in pain anymore” I want to say “ no shit, we are the ones in pain” as selfish as that sounds. I am not grieving because he faced death, I am grieving the loss of his physical presence that I haven’t experienced in my 44 years. I had thought about asking dad if he wanted a celebration of life while he was alive but I didn’t. I now know that’s what I want. If I am lucky enough to know death is near I want my family and friends to gather around with me and share memories so we can laugh together and say farewells. Afterward I want them to gather with the intention of supporting each other through the loss, share how they are feeling and coping and grieve together.

Grief is part of life, we can’t escape it and we can’t be prepared for it. We have to honour it as it happens, embrace the beautiful messiness of it. I keep telling myself “dad would want me to pick myself up and dust myself off” I have tried to breathe away tears and keep going with my day. The truth is we can have the messiness of the ugly Oprah cry, snot and all and the strength to get on with the day. We can pray for them to return and appreciate their legacy, we can feel empty and have a heart full of memories, we can wish for yesterday and look forward to tomorrow, we can throw something in anger and then look out the window in peace and gratefulness. 

At the top of my list for as long as it is needed will be “ embrace the beautiful mess” followed by whatever I can tackle that day.

Losing my dad

When we lost our grandmother I wondered how we would ever be able to move on without her. Slowly we did, we got used to the new way of life. Then we lost my brother and again I thought it was impossible to go on without him, but we did, we got used to a new way of life. They both left a hole in my heart that has taken time but is slowly healing. I expected the same when my dad passed. I thought it will be hard, it will leave a hole and we will get used to a new way of life.

Each loss is different because it's a different relationship. The loss of my dad has left my whole body feeling hollow. I literally feel like a shell and I need to decide what to fill myself back up with. It has left me rethinking and redefining my life. Who am I? How have I lived? Have I made the right decisions about relationships? career? Am I living my life to the fullest like he did?

When I was a kid, many of my cousins spoke about dad being their favourite uncle and I could never understand why, after all he was just my dad. What was so special about him? As I grew older I paid more attention to the WHY, especially over the past 11 years since we thought we would lose him to heart disease.

What I learned is he was humble, he was kind, he was funny, he loved unconditionally, he put family first, he was forgiving, he respected others and demanded respect for himself, he gave his all to everything he did, he was human, he had good morals and values, he worked hard, he was wise, he told it as it was, he was generous and selfless - the list could go on. All of these things combined made him an incredible man. Of course he was not perfect, he had his moments of making mistakes as well all do but he always had good intentions for himself or for us.

A couple years ago I challenged him because he was very adamant about certain people (very few) that he would not include in his life. People that I thought deserved a chance. If he was such a forgiving man, so kind, all these things that made him the favourite, why be so determined about these people? He told me "actions honey, they don't respect themselves, they are too leaky a vessel to put too much hope in, spend your energy on the ones who deserve it and appreciate it" To him that was almost everyone he knew, but those few he was right about.

That's why he was the favourite. After 44 years of this kind of powerful presence in my life, this type of role model, it's not surprising that my body feels hollow. I looked to him for wisdom and direction almost daily in life, now I have to just consider what I think his wise words would be in death.

The process of redefining myself and learning who I am without that presence in my life is going to be long. I am lucky that off the top I know that I have chosen my relationships well and those don't need any changing.  I love my career although there is something missing in that. As far as living life to the fullest, that's going to take some time because I have lots of time left.

I am going to continue to pay close attention to how I spend my days. I will not rush the grieving process, I will let it happen as it needs to and take care of myself. I will do my best to carry his lessons with me and be the humblest person I can be. I will put all of my effort into everything I do and all of the relationships I cherish. I am releasing all negativity and absorbing all of the beauty and positive energies around me.

There is a great sense of peace that I feel with his passing. I know he is in a good place with my brother and many other loved ones. I know his pain is gone. I know he suffers no longer. Even with that sense of peace there is still this wrenching pain of missing his presence. So many generous people have offered to do anything I need from them. These offers are with great intentions and a full awareness that the only thing that can fix this pain is to have my daddy back in his chair and not even God can give me that. I will never again offer "if there is anything I can do, please let me know" to someone in mourning, not because I am not willing but because I now know that it is a process that we all have to go through, loss is a part of life and a personal process and nobody ever takes people up on that offer for that simple reason. No amount of kindness or pity will fill my hollow body back up, only time, love, kindness and forgiveness for myself will do that.

For anyone out there that is facing grief, don't be afraid of it. Embrace it, celebrate the life you once had and be a frog, you can't move backward, forward is the only direction. That's what this face will always remind me of, never give up!

Namaste!