Tag: death

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Hard.

I never imagined that it would be this hard.

It, in this case, being writing while simultaneously grieving and trying to move forward after the loss of my father. I have sat here, staring at this blinking cursor on the computer screen for months. A few words into my thoughts, and my attention would wander to memories of Dad.

His presence these days is suffocating.

And if I’m being honest, I sometimes get tired of talking about it him. I feel guilty saying that, since there aren’t that many things in this life I wouldn’t suddenly trade in if it meant bringing him back to real life. But the grief is heavy and tiresome and it just won’t go away. I know why; I get it.

But I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know how to deal with it.

And it’s just so hard.

Mr. T – he’s everywhere I am.

Some of this is my very own fault. I’ve purposely given him space to hang out and be present all around me. His identifiable plaid shirts hang nicely (to Dad’s standards) in frames along my bedroom wall, saddled with the last two chap-sticks he’d used until his very last days. In my living room, an iconic portrait of him hangs on the wall.

A few books from his personal collection are nestled in the rows of romantic fairy tales, female memoirs and self-help books of my own that Dad would have likely never been interested in. My couch, that just so happens to be perfectly designed for movie nights and cozy naps, was a gift from Dear ol’ Dad; he insisted on buying it for me, which saved me from the cheaply built and likely uncomfortable futon I almost bought from Walmart.

When the “check engine!” light glows upon my dashboard, Dad is the first person I think to call. The same thing for when my oil light beams, but I know he’d likely give me shit – since he once (or several times) tried to teach me the importance of diligently checking my oil and I never listened, and then blew up my engine.
OOPS.

My favourite pair of cold weather boots: Dad bought ’em, when we were in Scotland and I had arrived ill-prepared for the frigid temperatures. That was the only vacation that Dad and I ever took together, just the two of us. And when someone recently reminded me it was tax season, I fell apart at the thought of actually hiring someone to do my taxes for me or the horror of having to do them myself. Dad always took the lead on that one and did them for the whole family.

Then every single time I sit down to write on this laptop: my Dad. He was generous enough to buy me this MacBook, and the two I owned before it.

Welp. It’s no wonder I’m having a hard time getting any writing done.

I’m having a really difficult time embracing the reality of living life without a father.

Sometimes I forget about it, and then I remember. I remember his cold, limp hand in mine as I tried desperately to refrain from blinking in hopes that I wouldn’t miss the moment when he might take one last breath, until my family kindly pulled me out of the hospital room on that final day.

So it’s not that I have nothing to write these days, but it’s seemingly tougher to do with grief latching tightly to me. My thoughts, some of them not even not directly related to my father, keep me up at night. They take up space for much too long, dispersing weight, stress, tension through every channel and area of my body. Eventually, I’m just sort of lost for words and feeling defeated by the heartache that’s engulfed my body. Because I’m human and naturally care what other people think of me to some extent, I’ve put my best face forward as often as possible, to fit in and make good impressions with fairly new faces and “move on” – because, that’s what I’m *supposed* to do, right? (Wrong)

The truth is that I’m just half-decent at pretending that I’m okay and that I’ve sort of got it all figured out; that there’s more good days than bad. It’s been about 8 months since my Dad passed away though and some of my biggest wins are days when I manage to get myself back in bed at the end of the day without tears rolling down my cheeks just thinking about the fact that he’s gone.

Most days, he’s all I think about. At any given moment, I suddenly remember that I can’t email him, hear his voice, see his face in real life or even try to text him on his old T9 texting flip phone – and it’s over.

The grief rushes over me and I’m stuck.

I’ve been paralyzed since the moment I found out my father slipped away. Which is sort of ironic really, since I actually haven’t stopped moving or taken a hot minute to really, truly grieve since I found out he died.

For real.

It was the early evening on Wednesday in June when Mr. T passed away. Before the sun had even started to rise the next morning, I was already standing in the security lineup at the airport waiting to fly back to the city I called “home”, where I needed to finish packing my apartment. By Saturday morning, I had gone out for lunch, dinner and drinks on different occasions with different friends and was all moved into a new apartment in a different city by the Saturday evening. I was back at the airport Monday morning for training and officially started my new job the following Monday. By that point, it had been almost two weeks since Dad had passed. The whole experience was so fresh that it still didn’t feel real, and maybe that made it easy for me to just put my head down and push forward with trying to settle into new digs, new friendships, new relationships, and the every day hustle and grind of life as per usual.

This isn’t the first time I’ve experienced a death of someone close to me. I’ve unfortunately lost both my grandmothers, an uncle, a great-aunt and a few family friends. But, even though I’m aware of the truth that eventually we all die, and that there are occasional circumstance where sometimes the people we love leave this earth sooner than we expected them too, I just let the ugly truth of my father dying one day just slip away and sort of hoped it might just miraculously never happen.

Because, let’s be real: we don’t ever want our heroes to die. My Dad was a HUGE part of my life; he raised me for all the memorable years of my life as a stay-at-home husband, always available father, chaperone for school field trips, someone to converse on the way to and from school, and maker of some mediocre but made-with-love lunches. He never failed to only give me sage advice when I mostly wanted easy answers, and always challenged me to become a better version of the person I thought I should be. No, he was never my best friend – but he believed in me and loved me tremendously in quiet but meaningful gestures.

So as I continue to pass through daily, monthly and yearly milestones without him, I find myself slowing down, pausing, and holding on so tight to the memories and times when I got to share those little moments with him – wishing that he could still be there now, because I’m clueless as to how to proceed alone. I stall indefinitely in those times, my heart clenching tighter around them, leaving no space for potentially new experiences to breathe into existence.

I’m just not ready.

CHANGE. It’s a subject I’ve talked about a lot on this dusty old blog. I’ve also mentioned before that although change is one of life’s few constants, it still remains to be a subject that many, including myself struggle with.

For me, this change is so significant and suffocating. I’m traumatized by grief, and it shows.

It’s sitting in those bags under my eyes and it’s the reason I complain about how tired I feel all.the.time. It’s the main event of the nightmares in my broken sleep at night, and the vivid dreams that continue to cling to me long after I’ve crawled out of bed and ventured into my day. It’s the root of aching pain in my back, carried into my shoulders and pinning them to my ears. It’s the seized up muscles in my neck causing debilitating headaches and the stress that’s encouraged me to clench and grind my teeth.

Almost 8 months since my heart was completely shattered, and there’s a ripple effect surging throughout my body still.

I have been frantically trying to holding the seams of myself together, putting band-aids on gaping wounds. I’ve foolishly tried to pretend that death is “no big deal”, because it’s an inevitable element of life and something we just have to embrace and move forward from. I’ve tried to conceal my sadness with fake smiles and false enthusiasm, good deeds and best friends, hard work, fun adventures, retail therapy, and any other distraction that deters me away from the harsh reality of having to figure out how to live my life without my Dad.

But quick fixes never work. Somewhere in the midst of silence and over-stimulation, I’ve unravelled and fallen apart from the inside, out.

As I write this, I’m trying to watch the words appear on the screen through a waterfall of tears. There is a hole in my heart, in my existence. And similiar to a deflating balloon, everything about life as I once knew it has sort of just diminished. Everything feels different and the littlest things in life just feel torturous.

Including pouring my heart into a blog post.

It took me approximately 3 months to put together the words in this piece. I struggled to make it through single sentences, tears streaming down my face in sadness and frustration.

I lost track of how many times I thought about deleting the whole thing; I didn’t want it to seem like I was throwing a pity party for myself. But as many people have continued to remind me, I’m not crying for attention. I’m crying, sulking, mourning and wondering what the fuck is happening – because that’s a most reasonable reaction to the reality I face, day in and day out, after such a major loss. Sure, it’s not the only reaction, but it’s one that makes total sense.

As much as I don’t want to believe he’s gone, I knew deep down that Mr. T would die eventually; he was an “old man with grey hair” ever since I’d been a little kid, so I had tried to somehow mentally prepare for this day. And even though I  tried to imagine the scenario in my head numerous times, I don’t think it helped. To be honest, I don’t know that I expected it to or that I knew what to expect. And moving forward, I still don’t know where to set my expectations.

But I don’t think that I’m supposed to understand it or know anything for sure about this – the raw reality of losing someone you love(d) more than anything else, grief, life without that person. I don’t think anyone does, because I don’t think there are concrete answers or solutions to this experience. It’s different for everyone, every single time.

It’s been 8 months and it still hurts the same – if not more – than it did when I got dragged out of that hospital room after Dad died. It might hurt that way for awhile.

I don’t really know.

I just know that it’s hard.

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Life: Beyond Comprehension

I’ll never forget the moment I found out my Dad had passed away.

I had selfishly decided to leave the hospital for the first time in 28 hours to have a shower – I wanted to wash the stale scent of mystery meat and excessively pureed vegetables from my skin. In the back of my mind and in my heart, I was hoping that he would find the strength to open his eyes and see me; if by some magical miracle that moment happened, I wanted to look almost my best. But after one of the fastest showers I’d ever taken, I was on my way back to the hospital when my Mom called to break the news (and my heart). I had barely pulled over to the side of the road and from behind the wheel, my road rage had gone from non-existent to full throttle. In a matter of seconds, I was suddenly screaming in tears for other drivers to get out of my way, for the traffic lights to hurry up and give me a green light, for the universe to turn back time and take me out of this nightmare.

Within the hour, that anger was suppressed in the presence of staggering heartbreak. I sat there staring at my Dad with a shattered heart and a fierce regret for leaving his side for a damn shower. I knew that even if I had been there, I would have never been able to execute a suitable goodbye, but I never got the chance to try – and I only had myself to blame. By the next morning and as the days slowly passed, the unaddressed anger lingered in my body. When friends would check-in to see how I was coping, I’d scowl at my phone while pretending I was pleased to hear from them. On my flight to Toronto just a few days later, I had to exert all my effort into not blowing up to my neighbouring passenger while she told me stories about the family she was on the way to visit. I withheld my anger in business meetings – because, I didn’t want to be the one to make others uncomfortable with my unfortunate series of events.

For the past 4 months, anger has been simmering inside me with nowhere to go. I’ve been wandering, working, and filling my time with anything to stay distracted; to avoid unleashing my emotions where people can see them. Because death – the idea of it, the subject of it, the reality of it and the concept of it happening to us and to people we love is fucking uncomfortable and no one wants to talk about it, especially not for months on end. So yeah, at work and when (on the rare occasion) I meet new friends in this city that doesn’t feel like home yet, we don’t talk about it. Why would we want to talk about losing the people we love, when we can simply talk about what we love (that we still have)? Why talk about devastating circumstances, when there’s a million other even-just-slightly-less devastating events we can discuss? Why should everyone else feel uncomfortable, just because I’m not sure how to wrap my brain around the way my life’s unfolded over the summer?

No, I’m not trying to guilt trip anyone for living their own life and focusing on life moments that make them happy instead of sad. I’m just voicing my frustrations (because it’s my blog and I do what I want).

It’s just a bit discouraging how afraid so many of us are when the topic of death is brought to the table. It’s this outstanding part of life that we all experience in some form or another; it breaks all of us apart from the inside – yet no one wants to acknowledge the pain and maybe work together to find our way through it. I understand that it’s depressing, but it’s an element of life that we can’t just ignore; I mean, we can for a while, but you can’t outrun it forever.

So, what do you do when death unfolds right in front of you and takes over?

I’ve been trying to find an answer for months; I don’t think there’s anything really concrete. Whether it’s something we’re waiting on or an event that happens when we weren’t even a little bit ready for it, I’ve realized that death has different effects on every person it encounters. Some of us feel sad. Or maybe you get mad like I do. Or perhaps, it just doesn’t bother you at all. Actually, I think that last one is a lie – unless you actually do have a decrepit rock for a heart. But some of us are better at just not letting our emotions get the best of us and just plugging along with minimal fucks to give about what we can’t control.

But I think what I really want to get across with my words here is that if you’re ever going through something so utterly painful as someone you love passing away, you’re allowed to feel however the fuck you want to feel. If your heart just keeps breaking no matter how many ways you’ve tried to tape it up, that’s understandable. If you’re a little down and out and just not feeling yourself, that makes sense too. If you’re maybe a tad anxious, a bit unsure, slightly uncomfortable without the presence of someone who was always there – it’s not surprising. And hey, if you’re pissed right off that there’s absolutely nothing you can do to make things feel better right down at the root of it all – I feel you.

Just as discouraging as our minimal discussion about death, is the fact that so many people don’t recognize anger as a healthy emotion. Maybe it’s not healthy to be consistently angry – so angry and unstable that we let it fuel our habits and turn into destructive monsters – but I think it’s necessary for us to be mad about things that happen and to recognize what makes us tick. If we’re bothered and really shaken up about something, we shouldn’t just throw that away. Except, all too often I think we just feel the need to find a way to calm down, let go, distract ourselves with positivity.

Anger is just as important as any other emotion and if it’s surging through your body, I highly recommend taking the time to feel it (feel it hard!). I mean, if your lover broke your heart or the universe lit a match to your carefully thought out plans or if someone stabbed you in the back – or if your parent died the moment you stepped away for a 20 minutes – then I think you’re more than deserving to be mad about it — on top of whatever other emotion(s) you feel, too. In fact, I’d be super curious as to how dark and empty your soul is if you felt close to nothing at all in any close to awful scenario that happened to you.

It’s important to remember that you’re entitled to however you feel, but also to be mindful that other people may not feel the same or understand what you’re feeling. I’ve constantly tried to make my pain relatable to others, but no matter how I try to explain it – they’ll never feel the pain the way I do. And as frustrating as that truth is, that’s just how it goes.

So no matter how jealous, bitter, pensive, sad, or just plain miserable I feel — I’m just learning to live with it. Unfortunately, that means other people sort of have to, too. I’m doing my best not to lose my cool or cry excessively, and I’m trying to similiar to the fun, energetic self I was 5 months ago (before everything changed) but sometimes it just happens all that stuff just happens because I’m just too tired to stop it. Sometimes, getting upset  and feeling unhappy just needs to happen.

Grief seems to do whatever it wants to, and it seems as though the healthiest way to deal with it – is to just let it do it’s thing without feeling too bad about it.

If you haven’t faced it already, I’m sorry to say – but you will eventually. And when you do, I hope that you’re not too hard on yourself and give yourself permission to be incredibly imperfect in the process of navigating the pain, hurt, and uncontrollable way it affects your life – whatever that turns out to be. It may be bearable or it may feel impossible, and there’s really no way to prepare for it. The only thing I can tell you is that it probably won’t make sense.

But hey – neither did taking a shower, just to smell and look good at the hospital.

I guess that’s just how life unfolds sometimes. We just gotta’ keep doing what feels necessary in each moment that presents itself,  and the do our best  to take another step forward and figure out the rest from there.

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the Big D.

I don’t handle death well.

I have always felt uneasy with how to accept the fact that someone or something was just there, only to realize they’re suddenly gone. In my head, I can still feel their existence, but ultimately it’s now just a simple memory. It’s hard to accept that it’s real.

Once whatever it is leaves our life, everything shifts; life changes without their presence. And for us, it’s time to let go and move on.

But damnit, it’s hard.

Death. We often associate it with someone’s life ending – someone we loved, who was taken from us when we weren’t ready to let go. But when we finish certain chapters of our life, that’s essentially death too. When we move, when we start fresh, when we end relationships, quit jobs, and delete our emails, text messages, and clear our inbox of old conversations – it’s all a variation of death. And all of it, in it’s big and small circumstances, is never easy to grasp.

In the past (almost) 9 months of my life – transitioning from Vancouver to Calgary – I’ve been holding out on death.

Once I moved here and over time, friendships and familiar sights were starting to become distant memories. Strong connections that came with physical touch and in person experiences slowly started to fade into simple words via text or email, with the exception of special circumstances in a phone call or a FaceTime video – but even then, there’s no warmth to feel on your skin.

I no longer had a vast, seemingly endless pool of salt water to rely on when my soul needed soothing. I was smart enough to bring some with me in a small glass jar that sits on my bedside table, but even it’s lost it’s zest and has simply become a dirty jar of stale, murky water.

The more time I spent navigating my way through the city of Calgary and familiarizing myself with frequent and favourite stops here, the pieces that I loved about the city I grew up and spent most of my life in became simple figments of my imagination, memories, or pictures and thoughts.

Slowly, day by day and as the months went by, Vancouver – as I had known it for so long – was slowly dying. And rather then let it go, I held on tightly to absolutely anything I could that could keep even a little bit of it alive.

Because, who am I without my identity? I’m a girl who was raised in Vancouver and has solidified an entire tribe there; it’s where I hold a lot of my favourite memories. And although winter’s chill is slowly taking over Calgary as we near December, I insist on finding comfort in wearing my favourite local Vancouver brands and rocking the leggings and flip flops look while I shiver.

Physically, I’m here in Calgary and doing just enough to make it feel as close to ‘normal’ as I need. But realistically, I have been desperately holding onto everything that made me feel safe – people, memories, objects that remind me of comfort, familiarity, and a world where everything makes sense and I don’t feel lost or alone. I put a mental block on embracing where I live now in an effort to prevent the ‘death’ of “home” that I miss so hard.

Change – even though we know it’s inevitable and we accept it – is scary. Being afraid of change, fearing the unknown, and looking for protection is part of what makes us human.

But so is death.

Without trying to sound depressing, the truth is that everything will eventually die. Whether that be a relationship with someone we love or a place we call home, or both – there’s an end date to everything. As time goes on, we grow older and wiser and we learn new things that cause us to switch gears. The same happens with scenarios, environments, and situations that we put ourselves in. We change and where we are changes, and in the process life thrives and dies while the world keeps spinning.

Sometimes it takes an hour, a day, a month, a year. Sometimes it lasts for several years or almost 100 years. But eventually, there will come a time when we and what we know will stop.

I know, I know. It sounds so awful to say it out loud. I’ve talked about it too many times in the last few days, and it never gets better to hear the truth. Even accepting the reality of all doesn’t make it easier, and when it happens again (and again, and again) it probably will feel the same.

But what we sometimes forget, is that death and letting go offers an open space to discover something else. Not necessarily to replace what you shared with someone or what you experienced, but to just add to your list of wonderful moments; to give yourself new life and a fresh start and a warm reassurance that there’s always something more out there than what we already have right in front of us.

When someone dies, we appreciate the contribution they made in our life. We reflect, we absorb the good and learn from the bad, and we use their presence as inspiration to be a better version of ourselves. When an experience ends, we use that experience to fuel our future – we learn, we grow, we move forward.

Again, I make this sound so easy. But it’s not.

I know from so much experience.

I made this crazy decision to move to Calgary almost 9 months ago. I wanted the job, the new city, the adventure that came with it, and I still do – but I initially got caught up in the excitement and forgot about the scary parts. I forgot about all the changes – big and small – and the sense of loneliness. I forgot about getting lost, how much it costs to start new and meet new people and just enjoy a new city. I forgot all about the hard parts about moving to somewhere new, until they all came rolling into my life at once and I freaked out.

Sure, I dived right in… but I found myself a safety net just before I hit the deep end. I wasn’t ready to be absolutely vulnerable and totally uncomfortable in unknown territory. So, I clung for security and a constant reminder of home to fill the void in my heart.

But, nothing lasts forever – remember?

Eventually, my security blanket started to unravel until it couldn’t hold me up anymore. And one day (actually, just days before I wrote this all out), a small tear in the seams got in the way of one of the universe’s sharp edges and everything fell to it’s ultimate death.

Because that’s how life goes.

But with every end, there’s a new beginning. And even if you lose your way or lose your identity in the process, you’ll eventually find your way back or even find a new journey. And yes, I know you’re rolling your own eyes because I’m making this sound so simple…

It is, and it isn’t. I get it, because it’s where I am right now.

In Vancouver, I know who I am. I have my people, I know my way around, I fit in and it makes sense. In Calgary, almost everyone is a stranger and I have a hard time remembering what’s it’s like to ‘just be’ me. When I moved here, a part of me got left behind (I’m sure I left it somewhere near the ocean) and I just don’t feel myself.

It’s weird. It’s uncomfortable. I don’t like it, and I don’t really have anyone that absolutely I trust with my heart and soul to properly remind me of who I’m supposed to be.

BUT, maybe… just maybe, that’s the point.

I’m allowed to be sad, to miss home, to feel a little lost and lonely and homesick and scared. I’m allowed to fear the unknown of tomorrow in this city, and mourn the loss of that sense of self that Vancouver always provided. But I also have to accept that ‘death’ for what is and see this for what it really is.

Whether I needed a fresh start or not, this is a brand new opportunity. It’s a chance to learn from mistakes, to revise my plan of attack, and to create a better version of me. Not that there was anything wrong with who I was before this all fell to pieces (for the 100th time) BUT there’s always room for improvement.

With every ‘death’ we experience in life, there comes an opportunity for discovery. We can reflect on how that person, that experience, that thing impacted us and how we can use that tomorrow, next year, for the rest of our life. We never have to forget about who or what it was that left us that little void in our heart, but we can recognize that there’s now a little bit of extra space for someone better and something a little bit more wonderful.

Admittedly, even a shift of perspective doesn’t make death easier to manage, but that’s okay. Mourning the loss is part of the process, and eventually – with the right perception and attitude towards the whole thing – we can all move along.

I’m still not good at accepting death’s reality, but I’m getting better at remembering that although one form of existence has ended, I’m still here.

Which counts for something. So, I might as well keep making the most of it.

Right? Right.