Five-years ago, June 22, my father died unexpectedly and you would think that with my line of work death would be a lot easier to handle as it something constantly talked about and discussed. The reality is, nothing prepares anyone to lose a loved one and no one can tell you how grief will be handled.
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| My dad and I (I'm around 6) |
For the most part I deal with a bit of object permanence in
that if something isn’t in my view every day or consistently I tend to forget
it exists until something reminds me. But my body always knows. My body
remembers these traumas and my body responds accordingly.
I can tell you that every March I get blue around the 24th
of the month. Even if my life is going well and I am not actively in a
depression, my body feels the loss of my grandmother and the ache of her
absence. And in June around the 20-25th
of the month, by body feels the loss of my father again, even if I am not
actively in a state of depression and even if I don’t actively remember the date
of his death. But it was father’s day
and I was reminded. Reminded of the guilt I carry for not talking to him and
seeing him more when I lived closer to him.
Guilt in spending less than 2 hours with him the day before father’s day
and quickly leaving to go back to my home in Phoenix where I could do what? Sit
on my phone or sit idly in my house?
He fell while hiking the day after father’s day in 2015. Two
days after I saw him for a brief moment. Unexpectedly.
“It’s not confirmed, but I think Dad fell while hiking,” my
brother, who rarely calls me says to me over the phone in the middle of my work
day.
Before the call is finished I have already googled “Man dies
hiking” and multiple things pop into my search Browser including the area he
was in. Gates pass. I stare at the screen, tears already forming and then they’re
falling down my face. I’m heaving from the force behind the tears. A co-worker passes my cubicle, then quickly
rushes off before my manager is at my entry way and she ushers me into her
office.
“I think,” I choke out words through tears. “I think my dad just died.”
And then my brother calls back and confirms what I already
knew. I don’t remember much after that, just that I went to my car and began
the two hour drive from my work to my brother’s house in Tucson, stopping at my
friend Kristin’s to numbly tell her what happened.
It’s hard to explain my relationship with my father because he was present in my life growing up, but he also suffered from multiple forms of mental disorders including manic depression, paranoid Schizophrenia. My relationship with my father isn’t the father-daughter dances that movies talk about and it’s not the drug-addled dark series you binge either. The first time I ever saw something in popular media that I could connect with and say, “Yeah, it’s like that.”
It happened while I was at friend’s house, I didn’t realize it until I was crying and not from the “oh this is sad.” But more from the connection and ache I could feel in my heart while watching I Am Sam starring Sean Penn and Dakota Fanning. The relationship between them is the closest I can get to explain my relationship with my father. One where the daughter fears that they will one day surpass their father’s in comprehension and intelligence and as a result, make their fathers feel bad. But that never happen with my dad, because mostly all I ever saw was pride.
What I also take
away from my relationship with my father is that though people may be born from
the same parents and live a similar life, their narratives can be astonishingly
different. My life while it has similar plot lines, is vastly different than
the life my older sister had. And my relationship with my father is vastly
different from the relationship my older brother had. My dad was not a dad to
him. He did not share the bond. But my father was so important in shaping who I
am today.
It was his mental
illness that pulled me into the psychology world and made me devour many books
dedicated to the lives of those who have been effected by imbalances in the
brain. I spent hours in the psychology section of the library or Barnes and
Nobel reading through text books, including the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of mental Disorders (DSM.)
It’s why I knew schizophrenia,
much like other mental illnesses are hereditary. It is why I wait each year for
the signs of my own psychological break. The truth is, my mental illnesses have
always been around, exacerbated by the casualties of life because I can’t tell
you of a single point in my life that I wasn’t a little bit sad or a little bit
anxious because it’s as long as I can remember. And for all of my mother’s faults she kept my
father’s illness hidden until we were in our early teens and it wasn’t until I
was 19 that I really experienced the severity of my un-medicated father.
My mental illnesses
are not the extreme that his were, as I don’t “need” medication to function,
but it would help me be more productive and it would help my lows be less low. It
would help the anxiety from creeping in at every moment of my life but I have
gone so long without them out of fear of stigmatization that I have developed
my own coping mechanisms. Are they good ones? Probably not. But they’ve gotten
me this far and far enough to be incredibly self-aware of my feelings and why I
am feeling how I do.
All of this is to
say that sometimes I get stuck in comparing my life to those of my friends and
I often find myself angry with the life I was given and the things I lack.
Because when your brain already tells you that you suck, it doesn’t stop you
from dissecting your relationships to that of your friends and their fathers. I find myself feeling jilted at the lack of
closeness, lack of guidance or emotional warmth that some of them speak of when
reference to their fathers.
I pull myself
back and I have to remember that he did the best that he could with what he had
and I’ve never actually questioned his love, just my own insecurity for the
awkwardness I felt talking about him with those who were not privileged to know
such a man that could inadvertently teach their daughter compassion and
kindness in a world that punishes and shuns those who do not fit the mold. I try to evoke the confidence and pride he
instilled in me through plastered post cards, pictures and letters I have sent
him displayed on his wall. And delight I heard in his voice or saw in his eyes
when I excelled.
He may not have
been a Harvard educated man that taught me about budgeting and finance to help
me excel in a world ruled by money. But he gave insight I needed to be a better
person and a brain that functions outside of the norm, even if some consider it
broken and frankly, that’s the better gift. And maybe one day soon, with his
strength, I’ll learn to forgive myself for not being a better daughter to him.
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| My dad and a few of his siblings (Bottom center) |
Please remember, You're not Alone
That made for a tough read, but so open and honest it's difficult to acknowledge all that was written.
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