Today marks seven years since my father made his unexpected departure. Each year I think that perhaps I will write a long memorial to him, something that truly captures his essence and how much he means (meant? I still don’t know which tense to use) to me. But each year I wait until the last minute, and then I feel guilty for rushing, as if I’m feigning emotion, and then I spiral into sadness realizing that I’m living my life and no longer thinking of him every minute of every day, as if my lack of thoughts might somehow erase his footprint on this planet.
But sensibly, truthfully, I know this is normal. I know that the passage of time causes the erosion of memories, a weakening to the blow that remembrance sometimes presents. I am not judging myself for the natural progression of distancing that has occurred between me then and him now and me now and him then. It’s all going to blur. It’s okay.
But what bothers me, is that I continue to feel disconnected. The truth is, I don’t understand that I had a dad. I think of him - all aspects of him: his face, his eyes, his voice, his white hair, his mannerisms, his thoughts, his dreams. But absolutely none of it feels real. I study his pictures and my mind just completely blanks out. I visit his grave and it feels like I’m looking at a cement block in the ground. I read the inscription, but I can’t comprehend what it means.
From the moment I saw the emergency surgeon walk down the hallway, still wearing my dad’s blood on his gown, I just decided to erase. Within minutes of his death, I grabbed my phone and deleted every text message we ever exchanged. I deleted our call history and every voicemail. When I got home, I jumped on my email and deleted every conversation we had, including the one from earlier that morning when he let me know he was going to the hospital for his back pain but not to worry, he’d be getting some meds and heading to work soon.
I can psychoanalyze myself ALL DAY. I get that this type of behavior is less about denial and more about a dissociative pattern in play as a means of self-preservation. And honestly, it’s never even really felt like I’ve been “in denial.” I always kind of welcomed the stages of grief. I wanted them. But theses highs and lows that everyone talks about? They just never came. It just flatlined. It’s like my emotions are still suspended somewhere, some illusive place that other people with other dead relatives have free access to, but I have yet to figure out how to get into the door. I thought that at some point this tangible pile of pain was supposed to hover over me and seep into my pores, allowing me to actually feel the trauma of that day and all the aftermath since it. But it didn’t. And it hasn’t.
I know grief isn’t constant. It isn’t steady. It isn’t linear and it isn’t logical. But I should feel it, right? At some point? Because the result of not feeling it is causing me to not be able to comprehend that I had a father, and that, then, yes, he died. I mean, I have my moments, sure. I’ve had nights where I just silently shake. And I felt the pain of hanging onto my stepmom and watching my grandma scream. I signed his organ donation papers. I received his death certificate. I have a bottle of his cologne that I still take out and sit on my closet floor and smell. I know my limits with Daddy-Daughter dances at weddings. I know what it feels like to be sad. But I just don’t know how to reconcile this massive feeling of vast confusion, detachment, and surrealness.
So, on days like today, his anniversary, or other days like his birthday or Thanksgiving or Father’s Day or my birthday or the entire 60 days that make up the months of May to June of each year, or when I have a McFlurry, or hear anything about real estate, or see a conch shell, or smell an apple cinnamon candle, or watch football, or hear someone talk about golf, I think of him. I remember him. I try to get all parts of myself connected and in alignment so together we can confront our reality and honor our father in the way we think he deserves. But it just doesn’t always work.
Instead of pretending that this phenomenon isn’t happening, and feeling bad that I have somehow “moved on” or abandoned my dad without ever actually conjuring up an appropriate grief response, I’m just going to acknowledge what I already know: there is no right or wrong way to grieve. There is no length of time or agreeable process. I am not a cold-hearted person because I haven’t spent the last 7 years a wreck. But I am also not immune to one day feeling all of the things I accidentally repressed, either. Death is expected; we will all experience it. But grief? That’s unchartered territory. No two experiences are the same.
Maybe these emotions will catch up. Maybe they won’t. Maybe I’ll always operate with a certain level of detachment from remembering, accepting, and memorializing the life my dad once lived. Or maybe, that key to that illusive door will magically and unexpectedly present itself. But until then, I know the more I try to analyze and control the experience, the further I will travel from his memory. So today, at least, I will trust that it is what it is, no one actually knows anything, I am alive because of him, and that in itself, is beauty.