Looking for the right words

I’m tired of the word “sad”. I think about being sad every day, even if I’m not particularly sad. I looked up some synonyms and prefer the following words: glum, melancholic, disconsolate, forlorn. Today I am forlorn. I have found it troubling that of late I find it hard to articulate some of the things I’m feeling and experiencing. For the first time I am lacking the right words to describe what is happening to me. Perhaps it is because I am unable to recognize what I am going through, so I find it hard to express it with language. I have never done this before, this intense grieving, so I guess I don’t have past experiences to draw upon.

Before my dad died, I read as much as I could to prepare myself for his death. I actually think this worked, to some degree - I knew what was happening as I held his hand while he took his final breaths. It wasn’t quite as peaceful as I’d imagined, but I still knew. Now, I feel clueless.

After my dad died and we buried him, I felt relief. I was so glad to not have to see him in so much pain, to live out this final countdown of his life. I hated watching him, and still ache for him, as he wrestled with his own mortality, the loss of any future. A life cut far too short. So after he died and the world went into lockdown, I stopped reading about death and dying and grieving, what my journey on the other side of my dad’s death would look like. I poured myself into work and novels. Even though I was stuck in my house (somewhat gratefully) I was escaping my reality and living in other places. And so we all went on, for months.

I found myself missing my sadness (melancholy!) and grief, I feel like I wasn’t a good daughter, or that something was wrong with me. I signed up for grief group sessions online, grateful to connect with others going through similar circumstances, but also as a chance to try and tap into my self, to see if I could pull some tears out of myself, to grieve. To feel.

I’ve had some of the best weeks the past few months - I’ve felt like I was able to return to a former self: happy, optimistic, energized about life - something, that I can honestly say I haven’t felt for many years, even before my dad got his first bowel cancer diagnosis. I am so incredibly grateful for that, I found a part of myself that had been hidden from me. Part of it I attribute to not seeing my dad dying everyday, and to be able to think about the future without the guilt of knowing he couldn’t do the same, but the other part is the hard work I’ve put into therapy, as well as some glorious anti-anxiety meds I’ve gone on. Could not recommend any of those thing enough - less sad things, therapy, and pharmaceuticals, if you need some help.

Through the online grief community I’ve met a couple girls who live in Denver who have both lost parents. The first time we got together for dinner, I was finally hearing things that reflected my experiences. They were naming feelings I didn’t know I had. It was a lot, that first dinner. It was wonderful to connect and talk, but it was also exhausting. I hadn’t talked about those things like that, ever. It is so great to have some friends who’ve been where I am, who’ve gone before me.

Yet, through all of this talking, and journaling, I was still feeling on top of the world. Then on Tuesday night, that ache in my chest returned, and the tears sprung loose. I don’t know exactly why this week, it’s likely to do with the overwhelming nature of our present world (coronavirus, (long overdue) social unrest), and the fact that I received two emails over the same number of days having to do with my dad. The first was notification that my dad would be getting a lifetime achievement award from an organization he’d been active in for years, and they’ve asked me to receive it on his behalf. I am so touched. It is a comfort to me to see others marking his contribution to the world, and his absence from it. Because it’s a big hole that he’s left. It’s a relief that others out there feel it too, and acknowledge it.

The second email was a notification to my brother and I about a small life insurance policy that my dad had named us beneficiaries of a long time ago; he’d likely forgotten it even existed. It just reminds me that the only reason I have a little extra cash is because my dad is dead. I would trade it in a heartbeat to have him back.

So just like that, my grief is back, and I’m sitting with it this week. While I was missing it before, and grateful to be grieving, it’s also uncomfortable. I was inspired, however, to finally listen to the last voicemail my dad left me. I’ve been listening to it over and over, it’s the only one I can find. In it, he’s telling me his social security number so that I can get his casket and funeral arrangements made. He makes a joke in it, which was so him. Like everything else in this whole ordeal, my feelings are mixed about it. I was scared to hear his voice again, but it feels so familiar and good. I’m sad the purpose of the call was to plan his funeral. He says my name in the message and that’s music to my ears.

It’s been almost three months since my dad died, and I have no clue what I’m navigating. It’s time to hit the books again, try to intellectualize my way out of this. When that fails (as it will), I’m going to try to reach out, even if it’s via the internet, this blog, Instagram. I’ve been finding it hard to talk to the unbereaved, and I struggle with that a lot. I am not trying to shut anyone out, but it’s hard to find the words to explain, or to bring up something sad when it hits me, because it just happens almost instantly, for seemingly no reason. Grief is very lonely, but I’ve read that is is also a way for humans to “turn inward and take stock and adjust” (George Bonanno, The Other Side of Sadness). I’m taking stock well enough on my own, but I might just need a little help in the day to day every now and then, when I’m feeling a little glum.