To say my dad and I had a complicated relationship at times would be an understatement. A lot of that stemmed from the fact that we have strong, similar personalities that would often clash as we both tried to understand each other and navigate life. I can't hold that against him, as everything he did, he did out of complete love and devotion to his family.
Nearly every single person I've met or talked to since my dad's passing has said the same thing, "He loved you guys so much and was so proud of you guys." This meant more to me than anyone who said, "I'm so sorry for your loss" or "Let me know if you need anything." That's not to say I didn't appreciate such kind words and the outpouring of support, but it was so wonderful to hear from others that my dad often bragged about this. A lot of that comes from the fact that my dad didn't always show his love for us in conventional ways, and, unfortunately, it took until he was gone for me to realize that.
Instead of saying, "I love you," my dad would say, "I went to Sam's Club and bought new tires for your car. Just show up with this piece of paper, and you're all set." I would write him a check for the amount I owed him, show up at Sam's Club, and tires would be put on my car. I never realized until it was too late that my dad's way of showing his love for us was always taking care of us. Now that he's gone, we're realizing just how much he did. It was the little things: picking up dog food from the vet, cleaning the fish tank (it still looks fine, and we've only had one fish die, so we're calling that a huge win), going to Sam's Club for groceries, etc. All of these are things he took care of, he really was the person who kept our house running by doing all of the "behind the scenes" things we never realized were going on, even though we lived there. It's been a difficult adjustment as we take on this new responsibility, and it's huge shoes we're filling.
The past six weeks have definitely been a challenge. There are good days and bad days, but I remind myself that he wouldn't want us to wallow in sadness; Dad would want us to hit the ground running every day and be productive (he's probably rolling in his grave knowing I took seven days off work when he died). Part of the difficulties stem from the suddenness of everything. We knew Dad was sick, and we had a feeling he didn't have much longer, but we always thought we had more time than we actually did. He fought the cancer for as long as he could and gave us an extra two years with him, and we're grateful for that so much. He and Mom did a fair amount of traveling last spring, which was wonderful as well. We're looking back at all the happy moments and still sharing silly stories about him. We're also continuing his love for pink flamingos, those definitely aren't going anywhere.
I want to end with an anecdote from Dr. Phil. He says that grief isn't a mental illness, it isn't something you're "cured" of, you simply learn to live with it. And that's exactly what we've been doing. We're learning to live with our new reality and how to take care of ourselves without Dad there doing all the heavy lifting without us even realizing it.
0 comments:
Post a Comment