When I first got the news, it was like someone punched me in the stomach. I couldn’t stop crying. For about 5 minutes, I forgot I was at work, I forgot that people would expect me to be polite, kind, and busy. For a second, I thought she was wrong, that you were still alive, that if I called your number, you would answer, and this would all be a terrible, horrible joke.
When I got out of the car and turned around to where I had to go back into work, I hated it. I hated this place was taking away from me my desperate need to grieve. I hated that it expected me to be anything but a screaming, crying person I wanted to be because I lost you.
It was somewhere in this I realized there were important people I needed to tell. How do I tell them this? How do you call someone and tell them someone they loved has just died? I had to though, so I did. I did it in the most compassionate, kind way I could think of, and I did it without yelling how horribly unfair this is, or even putting my feelings into it at all. I didn’t want to add to their grief, I just needed to be the person that handed it to them.
I had to work, there were things I needed to do, and as I did each one of them, it became clear to me how much we do is so meaningless that in the scope of SOMEONE I LOVED JUST DIED, how important is it really that I answer this phone call so someone can tell me they are going to be late for work? Of course you are going to be late for work, you are unreasonably irresponsible and I don’t care anymore because I lost my father.
I hated my job because it took away from my grieving, it took from me a moment that I could have been thinking about you, or worrying about my mother, or taking care of something actually important to me like my children.
It took me a good month after he passed to realize it wasn’t my job I hated, nor where I lived, or the fact that my hair is a stupid horrible color, or that an old woman cut me off in traffic, it was the fact that I was grieving and I needed to be kinder and gentler to myself and listen to what I needed instead of worrying about what everyone else needed.
One day I sat alone in my room and asked Alexa what day you were born on, it was Sunday. You died on a Friday. I don’t know why that was important to me, but it was in that moment, and contained information I truly needed.
On another day, I sat alone in my room and remembered you sitting there listening to me talk about how important college was to me, and how I had changed my major 7 times, and you didn’t even bat an eye. I bet you always knew I was that way, and just learned to accept it.
You weren’t that funny really. Your sense of humor was just so juvenile, but you certainly had a wit about you that nobody could deny. A quick comeback you were good at, even if it was something a 10 year old would have said. I don’t know why I needed to say that, but there you go.
Today, I don’t hate my job. It honestly didn’t do anything, but took me many days of literal hate to come to terms with that. Nothing stops when your world completely shatters. People are still selfish assholes, people still call in sick, and that bitch at work still thinks she runs the entire place and nobody stops her or lets her know she doesn’t, except that one time I got mad enough to.
I miss you, and I’m not going to stop missing you until the day I draw my last breath, and even then I’ll probably still miss you.
Grieving is stupid, and it doesn’t make any sense at all. You wake up in the morning, and remember you don’t have that person anymore and it ruins your day and you try your best to get through that day with some amount of dignity and when you lay your head on your pillow you again remember that person isn’t alive anymore and you go to sleep like it is going to protect you from the hurt.
So, goodbye dad. I hope when you got to heaven that you were welcomed in with open arms and that you were walking and running and driving some stupid 1955 Chevy or whatever it is you really liked.
I read this poem about grief. I didn’t write it, but it is very good and very true.
When grief
first came knocking,
I thought I had
two choices.
I could lock the door.
close the blinds.
Activate alarms
And shut it out.
But I still
lived in fear
of its intrusion,
of it finding a way
around my security systems,
around my defenses.
Or, I could invite it over
for morning coffee.
I would set the terms.
Block out the time.
I would get my house in order
and sit beside it,
let it say its piece
and send it away
as quickly as it came.
But grief doesn’t care much
for schedules
or facades.
An unexpected visitor
who comes and goes
as it pleases.
So, now I’m learning
another way.
When grief comes to visit,
I leave the door unlocked.
Sometimes, it
Frantically storms in.
Sometimes, it taps quietly on
the door waiting for
my response.
But, I’m learning to let it in.
To sit with it.
To see it.
To feel it.
So now,
When grief knocks,
I let it in.
I let it in.
~ Liz Newman
From the Porch 