Good Grief

Yesterday, November 8, was my dad's birthday. He would've been 66 years old. So, it goes without saying that this was the first of his birthdays that my family and I observed without him actually being here. At all.

To add to all the drama we're each dealing with this month, the one-year anniversary of his passing is coming up in less than three weeks... right around Thanksgiving of all days. Yes, that's part of the tragic irony: we lost him Thanksgiving weekend.

As if the holidays weren't stressful enough.

For a while I thought I was coping through my own grief relatively well. I'd sobbed uncontrollably the first several months, hit seemingly endless boundless pits of depression I never knew I could experience, and questioned every aspect of my own faith up and down for what felt like years. As I've already said many times to the ones who know me best, I never actually thought I'd be living a life without my dad in it.

But then, one day, things seemed a little bit brighter. I felt a little more at peace, and decided that must be what people describe as acceptance. Even though the knowledge of my dad's absence will always make me sad, it doesn't make me want to crawl into a deep black hole anymore. Suddenly, I felt excited for the future. I felt like I wanted to live again.

And then my brother walked into the room. Suddenly all the good feelings were gone, because I realized he was so far from the same page as me. He and our mother. And while that's all perfectly normal, if not expected, it doesn't make it any easy to deal with. In fact, some days it's down right frustrating.

If there's one thing I wish someone would've told me sooner about grieving, it's this: it will inevitably drudge up some conflict between the surviving family members. And, when you think about it, it makes perfect sense because no two people will ever mourn a loss in the same way.

Though we're almost a year out since dad, I can still see the prominent shadows of pain and sorrow every time I talk to my mother or my brother. Mom, who tries so hard to hide it, starts crying every time she talks about him and this month especially. And my younger brother, who literally has no chill about anything, doesn't even attempt to hide it. Rather he puts it on full display for just about anyone to see... and, to my chagrin, seems to encourage himself by knuckling down on those feelings (especially the bad ones).

I know I should be more sensitive and supportive to his feelings. That's what siblings are supposed to do for each other. But it's exactly this reaction - the one that only holds tighter to negative feelings - that concerns me the most, especially since he's still mourning a loss.

It's also this reaction that I find more and more frustrating, because he can't shut up about it. Literally. I could ask him a completely random question about something not at all related to the Grim-Reaper-shaped elephant in the room, and somehow find myself listening to a 15 minute long nonsensical diatribe all about his feelings. And his feelings alone:

He feels cheated. He feels sad. He feels angry. He feels overwhelmed. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get work down and reach a deadline on time for a change, or make plans with our cousin or some friends for a change of pace. And despite my best efforts to try to listen openly, to try and be supportive, I find myself growing angrier and angrier because he can't (or won't) take the hint that I need to step away to cool down. He just keeps talking, and talking, and talking - wah, wah, wah!

Look, I know that all sounds mean, and maybe even a little cold. I am my father's daughter. And I can tell you, without a shadow of doubt, that that sort of reaction (from my younger brother) would've driven our father nuts. Nuts.

While dad wasn't exactly a "touchy-feely" kind of guy, he was sensitive enough to listen to someone's problems for a while, just to help them get it off their chest. He also had enough wisdom to realize that once you get it off your chest, you have to let it go. Completely. Otherwise whatever ails you is gonna come back and eat you alive.

Yes, my dad had experience and wisdom on his side... just not really any tact. After the fifth or sixth time he probably would've angrily said to my brother, "Alright, that's enough! Now get on with it already!" Things I have definitely been more than tempted to say to him in the last few weeks. I don't however, because I know that's not how acceptance works. Everyone simply has to come to it in their own time; no matter how long or short.

I've come to accept my recent loss in part because I'm father's daughter. He would expect me to simply so that I can go on and do all the thing in life he'd listen to me talk about. I can also accept it because I allowed myself to have some "good grief;" I gave myself permission to feel everything I needed to feel and process it all in the ways that work best for me:

I let myself cry; I let myself feel angry; I let myself scream when I needed it. I meditated. I prayed (eventually). I didn't speak to anyone, and let myself fall silent. I gave myself permission to be completely still, because that's how I've always found my barrings whenever life gets overwhelming. I gave myself permission to move forward, the same way I gave myself permission to mourn.

Ultimately grief is just frustrating. It really is.