Sunday, March 18, 2018

How I've Grieved The Loss of My Father

My Grieving Process in over the course of my lifetime:

My father began preparing me for his death when I was 10 years old after he had a health issue. I'd lived in fear of his being killed in the line of duty all my childhood, be it with the PD or should his reserve unit be deployed.
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Dad eventually retired from the PD, didn't get deployed during Operation Desert Shield or Storm, & took a Security job in a safer environment. Still I had been conditioned to expect his death. It was ingrained in our relationship. The specter of death loomed large.


When I was 19 & the staff at my dorm came to my door & told me to call home when I slept through incessant ringing, I was primed for bad news about him & I swear my first words were, "Who died?" It was my nearly 5 year old niece.


My Dad made the 6 hour round trip with his first cousin, the indispensable Charlie Brown aka Cousin Charles, to get me. I was glad he was alive, but the loss of my niece crushed our family as it brought us together. Think about it.


We grieved HARD, broken throughout. The loss of that child put the cumbersome hyper-consciousness of my Father's, & my own, mortality in stark relief. It had to be gotten over for sake of moving forward & supporting the collective family.


Then came the next health scare for my father, followed by another, the most dire he'd ever faced, both within a years time. Suddenly the looming threat had manifest as the reaper placing his chessboard in your path. My father's life now subject to timed turns of play.


For all the grim reality & melancholy that comes with mourning one's passing before it had come, my father & I were vigilant and exuberant about the things we love, & though weakened by the fight to maintain his health often, he focused on the Living & the Joy.


Then death came calling Elders and Peers, & with fewer pieces on the board, every move was more consequential, be it deliberate or haphazard. Then came more mortifying health news coupled with immediate reassurances, & residual complications.


Then came another bit of dire news, & not much later a bold choice to pursue a life change, relocation, that would separate me & my father such a distance that my economics would render his departure a likely farewell.


It was when his relocation was affirmed that the grieving process began for me & my focus shifted to manifesting my appreciation for his efforts, & cognizance of his mortality in actions that would help him reach his chosen destination.


But he couldn't shake the feeling he wasn't going to make it. The journey from his home seemed snake-bit & he likened himself to Job. The decline from health to fragility was plotted an easily discernible downward trajectory.


Unfortunately for us, the despair of my father's situation & my role as support negated any discussion of his demise, as his state of mind was still a factor in any potential recovery from the nagging ailments.


But it couldn't be denied any longer, & as others got involved & things took a turn for the worse, I had to acknowledge a lifetime of sullen resignation on both our parts, he to mortality, mine, to my inability to shift focus from that in our relationship.


So for me, everything I was doing to help my father relocate was part of letting go of my father being a part of my now, & the indelible existence we shared as father & son becoming part of eternity across time as space.


So when my father told me he was ready to let go. I was ok with that. That I had to assert to him that I did not bear grievance against him for doing so, & that I loved him & accepted his choice, That evoked my tears. That my support of His will escaped his view.


Having cleared the air I left his side to pick up some things for his care that would make it more comfortable for him. I was also tasked as messenger, a role I was familiar with. I fully expected another morning with him would come, but it did not. He was gone.


I returned to the hospital to see my father just as they were preparing to transfer his body from his bed to the gurney. They gave me the room. It was the first time I saw someone who was deceased outside of at a wake or funeral in my life.


The light of life was obviously gone, & much like when I was at the first wake I can remember, near abouts age 6-7 years old, I got the sense it could return in an instant to the body before me. I checked myself & said "He's not here anymore... Bye Dad, Love you."


There was no sadness in me, no joy, just acceptance. My father was gone, & I was not to precede him in passing, so I was meant to be witness. It is my reality. The sadness struck when a greater reality outside of my father & I became unavoidable.


When I was fresh out of high school, I ran my mouth about every thought, regurgitated every so-called wisdom I heard, offering platitudes as insight and consolation out of naive sympathy & projection instead of true empathy.


Then as tragedy after tragedy struck my own family & friends, my study of faith, introspection about life experiences, muted my tones, weighted my words, until the reflex to be quick to comfort turned to a muted hush.


As people I know & cared about lost loved ones, despite having been conditioned to dread their imminent passing, my parents survived, my siblings survived. To speak on someone else's grief felt wrong to me. I was so blessed, so grateful for it.


So in what may have been a gross over-correction I vacillated from avoiding those grieving or grieving myself, or stumbling over myself every time my heart was heavy with empathy but I felt as if I was intruding by projecting that feeling outward.


And this went on for years, me at a loss as to how to address the bereaved in a way I could reconcile with my shame for my cockiness as a teen, & my experience & melancholy as an adult, accepting my time with my loved ones has ever encroaching mortal limits.


I knew wholeheartedly that if I let myself I could reflect the emotions of my mourning friends & recognize myself in their pain from my own experience. And yet I was blessed with my parents & immediate family, & cherished that blessing.


I learned to find resolve in honoring & memorializing the dead from my father by virtue of him making that his profession for the last years of his employment.  It helped me realize that innate sense of purpose is what helped me turn the corner on grieving my niece.


Nevertheless, I could no longer escape the reservoir of emotions I had stored up, the withheld sense of kinship & pain with all my friend who grieved openly as I "Stayed Strong" & or silent. I would have to tell them how I felt, knowing I'd be in their shoes.


Then I thought of every friend of my father I would need to reach out, because I respected & admired them all by virtue of how much they respected & admired my father, & thus encouraged me. Now they would be brought to tears before me for the 1st time in my life.


The magnanimity of my father loomed large, & my commitment to honor that kinship he shared, the love that was reciprocated between he & his friends & family meant I would have both purpose & pathos by which I might actualize my mourning.


So that is what I have done, & in doing so I have found resolve & resolution. My father built many communities of friends & family, their structures often independent, yet sharing a central cornerstone. Flawed & human as he was, he held it up as long as he could.


My father built a tent, & knew one day he would greet the sunrise for the last time, & I remain as his shadow cast upon the earth, surveying those in the shadow of the canopy he provided in all he did.


So I will say the goodbyes my father wasn't able to, & share the light rendered upon me from the best of him. There will no longer be a barrier between my heart & my friends for fear of my infringing on their grieving. I have been released. I can let go.

2 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. That I can't deny. Definitely emotional bloodletting through the written word on my part. Kind of strange to look back at note how I was scant on specifics for a myriad of reasons I now second guess. Mostly irrational fear.

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