My Dad Died 10 Years Ago Today. Here's What I've Learned After 10 Years of the Worst Grief Imaginable.
I didn’t think I would live to see this day.
If you had told me that, in 10 years, I would be able to sit in a coffee shop and write an article about how I’ve survived the past 10 years of grief, I wouldn’t have believed you.
“Thanks for being optimistic,” I would have said, “but, you’re lying. Surviving this is impossible.”
Sometimes, I still don’t believe that I’ve survived these past 10 years. I often feel as though I'm living in a dream, one that I'll eventually wake up from. Believing that this is a dream is often the only way I can convince myself to keep going — if I don’t fully accept this reality, it can’t kill me.
—
I am afraid of eerily good days. I have had two eerily good days in my life, that I can remember. Immediately following each of the eerily good days, I received the worst phone calls I’ve ever received. The first one was in college. I had finally settled into my college rhythm. I had friends for the first time in forever. I was giddy to walk across the Yard at the Mecca of Black education every day. I was beginning to pursue a relationship with Jesus and commit my life to following Him forever. I don’t remember what I did that day, but I remember the mood. I was energized. Ecstatic, even. This energy was foreign to me, but I welcomed it with open arms. “Ahh. This is what happiness feels like,” I thought to myself.
Then, my cell phone rang and I received the earth-shattering news that my Godsister had been killed. I remember the life leaving my body, the rage consuming my spirit, and the realization that this was my first encounter with grief connected to a close loved one passing. I know I’m lucky that I didn’t experience this type of grief until I was 18, but grief is grief. Right as I had settled into a freedom, happiness, and joy that I never imagined after years of longing for it, it was ripped from me the moment I grabbed hold of it.
It would be six years before I would have another eerily good day. I was 24, and once again, for the first time in a long time, I realized I was…happy. Genuinely happy. I had fallen madly in love with myself after years of putting in the work to do so. I was in love with the most amazing man (still am). My spirit was buoyant, a sense of lightness that enveloped me. Joy, happiness, and tranquility filled my being. As I retired to bed that evening, I felt that serene calm wash over me, embracing me as I drifted into sleep. Shortly thereafter, I was jolted from my sleep by a phone call bearing the gravest news I could imagine: my father had suffered a massive heart attack, and his condition was dire. With no time to spare, I hastily arranged a flight back home.
“F*ck,” I said aloud. “Well, happy Mother’s Day,” I grumbled with sarcastic anger as I realized what day it was.
I called my now-husband who happened to be working a night shift not too far from my apartment. I can’t help but wonder if God arranged his job at that location for this very moment. He was at my door in 20 minutes. He reached out to hold me, but my body had turned to stone. I was in survival mode: book a flight, fly home, and deal with emotions…never.
The following two weeks were a blur. My father experienced complication after complication. It wasn’t one of those movie scenarios where your loved one has a heart attack, but they’re coherent throughout their hospital stay and you get to speak with them when you visit. It wasn’t one of those idyllic situations where a person has a heart attack, receives a stint of some sort, goes on medication, and continues living their life. Not that a heart attack is ever idyllic, but you know what I mean. This wasn’t a happy ending. This wasn’t even the promise of a happy ending. You name the complication, we experienced it. My father never woke up. I never got to see his gentle, kind eyes that lit up whenever I walked into a room. I never got to see him smile his warm smile that melted any sadness away from my soul. I never got to hear his soothing, southern drawl that wrapped me in a warm hug every time he spoke. I never got to feel his squeeze or fatherly embrace again.
Right before this all happened, I was in the process of being selected for a teaching training fellowship program back in DC. To participate in the program, I had to complete some paperwork and doctor’s appointments by the end of May, which meant finding time to fly back to DC to get it done. I waited as long as I could before booking that flight back. We had received the news that things were potentially beginning to look up, so I figured that would be my window. I anticipated quickly handling business and flying back home to be with my father in the hospital until the fellowship started. However, upon touchdown, a message from my stepmother awaited me, bearing grim news: my father's condition had deteriorated significantly, casting a shadow over the prospects of his recovery.
My head finally hit the pillow at my apartment around midnight after receiving that text and I drifted into a restless, anxious sleep. I had the most vivid dream that night. I could physically feel my father’s spirit leaving my body in my sleep. In the dream, he was holding my hand and began to loosen his grip, eventually dropping my hand to turn away from me. I knew he was leaving me for good. I screamed and cried out, begging him to come back. “Please, don’t go!” I yelled in my sleep, waking up my now-husband. I somehow drifted back into a fitful sleep, only to be awakened a few hours later to the dreaded call. He was gone.
My protector, my rock, and my best friend was gone. Just as I had experienced in the dream, I felt his essence vanish from my body. I felt an emptying, physically and spiritually. My core, my being seemed to evaporate just as he was disappearing. The breath vacated my lungs. Surviving this was unthinkable, unimaginable. Life as I had known it would never be the same.
Somehow, I have survived the past ten years with an emptied heart, soul, and spirit. Somehow, I have survived the past ten years hollowed, void, and forever changed. Somehow, I continue to survive the most insurmountable pain imaginable, because that pain does not evade you. The grief does not leave your side and you learn to allow that pain to become your companion. Eventually, you stop searching for the person you were before, tearfully accepting that she no longer exists. There is grief in this acceptance, too. We must allow ourselves to grieve the loss of both people: ourselves and our loved one.
My coffee hasn’t tasted the same for 10 years. Each sip amplifies the ache in my heart to have just one last sip with him. I still can’t drive for more than 20 minutes without reaching for my phone to call him. That was kinda our thing — phone calls while driving in the car. I can’t stare too long at the life I’ve managed to build in his absence without feeling enraged that he is not here to witness it. I can’t look at his granddaughters without feeling enraged that they were robbed of the greatest grandfather they could have ever known. There is grief in the continuation of life.There is joy here, too, but there is also grief. Milestones, achievements, changes, and new memories will often trigger grief at the most unlikely moments. Don’t allow fear and guilt to suppress this. Ride this wave.
I am forever in search of his voice. When my head hits the pillow, my racquet strikes a tennis ball, when my anxiety cripples me…I lose myself in the search for his voice. Whether I am easing a tantrum with hugs and kisses, strolling through Target, or pouring my heart into an article, I am searching for him. It’s as if my body, mind, and spirit are forever working double time. The front half of me is trying to pay attention to the moment I am in, but the back half of me is whispering, “Where is he? Have we found him, yet?” The answer is always, “Not yet.” My brain knows he’s gone, but my heart refuses to accept it. Grief and delusion are best friends. You will likely never fully “believe” this loss happened. You will feel like you’ve been living in a nightmare that must end at any minute. Sometimes, that delusion is paramount to your survival.
Ten years ago, I thought the only way that I would survive grief was to make it disappear. So, I tried to do just that. I dove into my teaching fellowship a mere two weeks after attending the funeral. I pushed my body to the brink of exhaustion, wondering why daily tasks had now become the most arduous things I’d ever done. However, I ignored my queries and kept pushing. I got married, became a stepmom, and then a mother times two. I taught students and merged into teaching my kids at home. I started a business that never worked and somehow landed a book deal. I bought plants. I lost weight. I gained weight. I nursed babies, my hair fell out, and my health crumbled. My life and body were screaming at me to get off the hamster wheel of ignored grief but I wouldn’t listen to it. I had to survive this. “I should be over this by now,” I would tell myself.
If there is anything I have learned these past ten years, it is this: grief is survivable, but you cannot force it to disappear. Grief is survivable by creating a space for it to call home. Grief is survivable when you allow yourself to hug back when it engulfs you. Grief is survivable when you dress the wounds it causes rather than become enraged that it has wounded you. Grief is survivable when you accept that it will continue to wound you and that taking care of those wounds is now a lifelong task. Grief is survivable when you allow it to coexist with joy, even as joy feels unfamiliar and a little guilt-ridden. Grief is survivable when you say, “Welcome, friend. I’m not glad you’re here, but I know you need to be. I’ve saved a space for you.”
I have spent most of these past ten years refusing to make space for grief and it has resulted in my physical body and mental health revolting against me. I am in the process of damage control after years of neglect resulted in lifelong physical and mental consequences. It’s time to let grief sit in the front seat with me as I continue to figure out how to navigate life without my Compass. I must allow the front half and back half of my mind, body, and spirit to become one instead of forcibly separating them — the searching for his voice and his presence to be just as forefront as the daily activities I am pursuing. I must allow myself to cry openly and often, no matter how foreign it feels to do so. I have to admit when I am not okay and ask for a shoulder without fear of burdening others. I have to tell my grief, “Welcome, friend. I saved a space for you.”
I haven’t had an eerily good day since 2014. I’ve had good days, but not one of those eerily good ones where everything feels like it has finally settled into place. That calm before the impending storm. You know a storm is coming, but when you look at the sky, there is no evidence of said storm, so you convince yourself it is all in your head. I know an eerily good day will come again, though. Storms are an inescapable part of life. I also know that they, along with the grief they bring with them, are survivable as long as you make a little room.
I guess the next time an eerily good day happens, I should prepare to make just a little more space for whatever happens next.
In loving memory of my dad. I miss you every day.
