The Boss

My dad dying was awful for me. My husband and children also felt that loss in an immense way. I won’t lie, I went through a time where I was very bossy even possessive over the death of my dad. He had a wife of nearly 45 years, and I have a sister who had more years with my dad because she’s 4 years older than me; he was such a force with us ladies, and yet he touched so many other people, we all feel the death differently. I found myself saturated in the fact that he was MY dad, and MY grief outweighs anyone other than my mom or my sister. There was a grief lineup, my mom because she was his wife and knew him first, then my sister and then of course me. Anyone after me doesn’t feel that gaping hole as much as the 3 ladies, which of course is not true, but at the time of the fresh loss, it felt that way.

As I am composing this post, I’m aware that it has been over 2 months since I published my last one and when I began blogging, I didn’t set out certain goals for myself in how often I wanted to post or when, just when I felt lead to post something. The day this piece is published, the moment you’re reading right now, was the day my dad passed away, 8 years ago. Over the past 8 years I have an overwhelming number of “posts” that have accumulated in the “notes” section of my phone that have acted as my journal or diary of dealing with my grief, and not just grief that was instigated by the death of my dad but the other losses in my life that I have experienced to this point. Looking back over the past 8 years I have seen, in my opinion, personal to myself, the positive ways in which I navigated through the grief journey and the not so positive, but they’re unique to me and my experience.

Certain situations that are exclusive to my grief experience are what has forged my journey, singular moments over the past 8 years that are mine and mine alone, are why now, I feel as though I’m a master of grief, perhaps a proprietor of grief, a professional griever with over 8 years’ experience, I’m a Boss of MY grief. Here are a few instances, distinctive to my journey. I recall before my dad died that we had to develop a death plan preparation for each of my kids, as they were in grade 12, 9 and 6 at the time; each in different schools, and each with different needs. My dad, their beloved Papa was dying at home, we had to sit down with each of them and discuss when and how did they want to hear the news if he passed while they were in school. After my dad passed about a month later, I was out at my dad’s grave and there were tire marks from a tractor over his freshly resodded grave, there were no grave markers even. I lost my marbles and headed straight into the office of the cemetery and came unhinged. My husband had a marker fabricated with my dad’s first and last name on it so we could stake it in the ground until his headstone arrived so his resting place would be respected and not disturbed. Songs I once loved, that my dad and I shared and had in common I had nothing but hatred for, some songs made me physically hurt as they were part of a Celebration of Life video, and any time I heard them I would skip or turn the radio off. These are just 3 scenarios out of thousands over the past 8 years that have shaped me into the Boss of my grief that I am.

I read somewhere this snippet from a write up about what it’s like to have a dying parent, “When your parent is dying, you die inside right alongside them. Having a dying parent means you have to push through the guilt of feeling joy and happiness because you know that your parent expects nothing less. A dying parent means that you will be pushed to your limits, and you will find a strength you didn’t know you possessed…”. It’s true, not only in the dying process but for me also in the death process, and the after. I didn’t know what some of my limits were, but boy have I been pushed in my grief and now 8 years later it’s made me protective of those who do grieve, and I am reminded that the journey is personal to everyone.

I recognize in myself that because of my loss that I can comfort those more authentically when they are starting their journey with loss. I can also concede now that I have found some purpose in my pain on this the 8th Anniversary of my dad’s passing. I have learned so much more about myself over the last 8 years, what I can endure. I’m able to keep my dad’s memory alive and not have guilt living my life without him, at first it seemed so contradictory but now I’m in such a great place of freedom.

I miss my dad something fierce, the dictionary defines fierce this way: having or displaying an intense or ferocious aggressiveness: • powerful and destructive: • showing a heartfelt and powerful intensity. I have displayed intense and ferocious aggressiveness in my grief, I have had powerful and sometimes destructive reactions and responses because of my grief and my loss is heartfelt. What I wouldn’t give to have him with me now, to feel him, to smell him, talk with him, debate him, everything that was our father-daughter relationship. For now I will have to save that for my dreams while I sleep at night, and here in the present, I have learned that I’m in control of my grief (most days now), but it’s taken 8 years, for me to become the Boss that I am.