The Grief of Loss and Understanding Death

I sadly had to face an inevitable amount of loss within my family circle between 2020 and 2021. It started with my step-father passing away from an unexpected heart attack at the beginning of January, leading me to experience my first true plight with death as this was somebody I had known for a strong portion of my teenage years. Heck, he had married my mother two years prior. Being naive and stuck in the beginning of a worldwide pandemic, I put it on the back burner and tried to reel my mind away from the thoughts of loss and death and instead towards video games and a disheartening and difficult alcohol addiction that would take years to finally control.

Things were calm until November when my uncle unexpectedly moved on from this life, succumbing to his liver cancer. Despite now knowing the risks of alcohol as this made a second family member in my life to have garnered cancer from alcohol (though, my other uncle has managed to bypass the cancer for over ten years now due to him becoming completely sober), I got over this loss through more excessive drinking to cope. Probably not the best idea, but I didn't know what else to do and at this point, was at a loss of what else to expect in the coming new year.

Apparently, a lot because my father in law was diagnosed with multiple forms of cancer and my father had broken his foot and was sent to a nursing rehabilitation facility to heal his wound. I spent most of this time trying to steer away from alcohol and instead got a job I loved, made it to art college and began trying to better my life, despite all of the chaos I was surrounded by. My father and father in law were taking their situations surprisingly well, so I felt it in my best effort to stay strong for them, too.

Until come July. Unexpectedly, a very good friend who was like a brother to my own sibling passed away in a car accident while reaching for his cell phone. Knowing he was only sixteen and still had an entire lifetime of experiences ahead of him made this death hurt, and hurt, by God, it did. By this point, the drinking became excessive and out of control again, and my father in law was deteriorating quickly and before we knew it, three days passed and he was gone too.

My fiancee and I faced a lot of difficult times with all of the loss we were experiencing. We both isolated consistently from each other and would choose to indulge in our own activities to get away and cope, both involving alcohol though, sadly. Though, whereas I chose to be a defined idiot and drive from bar to bar to get my fill, he would grab a bottle and choose to drink in the comfort of his home. The thrill of risk and socialization urged me to keep going and kept my mind occupied in a time where it couldn't correctly process everything going on around me.

After these two losses, I overindulged in work and hobbies. Being short staffed at the time, I found myself working from seven in the morning til seven at night to appease my boss who constantly told me I was her best worker. Not wanting to disappoint, I continued this hectic schedule, going home after work to do college until eleven and then head to sleep. Unlucky for my overworked butt, I decided to also audition for a musical at the time and thus began my three month trial of overworking myself into a self destructive hole that would take me almost a year to finally work myself out of.

I was still working the long tireless hours, but practice for the musical was at seven to midnight every night, so after work, I would head straight there. Then the thirty minute drive home would take me to sitting at my laptop until three or five in the morning, depending on the classes I was taking at the time, only to get roughly a couple hours of sleep until I had to do it all over again.

At the time, I was overjoyed with my schedule. People praised me for getting through the pain of death with distraction, and I felt as though I was doing the right thing. Yeah, it was stressful and it was also destroying my relationship with my spouse as we would never see each other and it was causing them stress, but I felt powerful. I felt like I could take on the world and whatever other experiences it had out to get me.

But then November came around and I ended up losing my best friend: my father.

That was when everything came crashing down. His death was peaceful, he comforted us, his kids, telling us that it was okay, he was ready to go, he did everything he wanted to in his life; he had no regrets. To me, it didn't matter. This was my dad. My best friend. The one person who understood me more than anybody else. I was my father's son, and now he was gone.

Suddenly, nothing mattered. I left work. The musical was almost over so I took it in stride, but performed drunk or under the influence of other substances I decided to indulge in to heal during this difficult time. I skipped college and ended up dropping out. I gave up on my love of art for a long time. For me at the time, I lost the best person in my life, and there was nothing that could fix it. It was my dad. The only person who I felt like truly could help me, could understand me, could help me better myself, and he was gone.

Send destruction became the M O. Drink. Do drugs. Don't eat. Drive drunk. Be stupid. I got a DUI I regret due to my rambunctious actions, putting others in danger for the sole purpose of me just not caring, which I regret every single day now. I deserved the consequences of my actions. I destroyed a lot of relationships with friends and family. I became a violent person to old friends from my circle and especially, my fiancee. I was out of control and fierce. My father comforted me with the inkling that he was going to be okay, because he was ready to go. So why didn't I accept that?

Because losing people is hard. Grief comes in strides. Some people handle it better than others. Some turn to substances to cope, like I did. Others isolate to unhealthy levels to find some sort of semblance within themselves. Others use it as the strive to finally wake up and achieve their goals.

It took me a long year, but I'm finally taking the path of the latter. I moved to a new city away from my fiancee for some much needed time to myself to properly heal. I threw away the want for drugs and alcohol to be able to heal from my addictions, moving to a city with no plugs, no sources, and it has helped me tremendously. For the first time in this past year, and so close to his one year anniversary of his passing, I'm finally able to accept the fact that my father is in a better place. If he was watching me, which I don't know what comes in the after life, so he could have been, he would be disappointed. He wouldn't want me to beat myself up over losing him; he would still want me to achieve everything I wish to in my life, knowing that he is always following my journey, wherever he may be.

I have written over five thousand words in three days, more than I have written in years. I'm working on a webcomic for the Webtoon platform and working on one shot manga projects for future competitions. I'm finally achieving goals from dealing with grief in tumultuously self destructive ways to be able to achieve things I know my family will be rooting me for for many years to come.

Grief is devastating, but try not to beat yourself up over a loss. Know what they meant to you, and what they would want you to be doing now. I'm so much more certain that they would get much more joy over reading articles of people's success stories on fun little writing websites than destroying yourself over alcohol and drugs.

And don't worry, I've been almost a month sober and I'm planning to keep it that way.