Grief

Dear Nora,

The first real grief I knew was the loss of my dad when I was 15. It was sudden and unexpected when he took his own life; not the way one usually likes to ring in the new year to say the least.

I’ve been thinking about this loss a lot recently. I have grown and changed so much since that day. I remember being angry at him for faking sick and afterwards feeling incredibly guilty for not seeing that he truly was sick, just not in the way he was acting. I remember the trickle of blood from his nose, quickly wiped away by a nurse and the paper bags on his hands that prevented me from holding them. I remember sliding down the wall as all the machines turned off, sinking to the floor and feeling like the world was crumbling. I was outraged at the nurses at the nearby station for laughing about something, didn’t they know my dad was dying? Couldn’t they see that I was on the grimy hospital floor crying?

Now I know my anger was just grief and it was malplaced. I was young and I’d never experienced anything like the loss of a parent before. I’d had grandparents die, but I was either too young to fully understand or didn’t have much of a relationship with them. This was very different. I didn’t want to go to school or see any of my friends. Some days I felt awful and others I felt fine which made me feel guilty.

Death is a hard thing to navigate, especially in a culture that still somehow finds it so off putting to ever discuss. When I returned to school, my first period teacher (I’ll keep their name to myself) joked in front of the entire class that I must’ve been faking sick to extend my holiday; I almost got sick right then and there on my desk. I fell down the stairs while taking the note my mother had written explaining my absence to the front office. The assistant didn’t know how to react and simply said, “Are you joking?!” To which I had to reply that I unfortunately was not making a joke before returning to class. I told a dear friend and naturally, as any 15 year old would react, he didn’t believe me. I think his disbelief was more out of astonishment and empathy than anything else. It was horrible. All of it. The only way I could remember his face was with the blood running from his nose and I couldn’t make it stop.

His funeral was closed casket due to the nature of his death. I was able to sneak in before the ceremony and say goodbye. My sister put quarters for safe passage in his casket. I feel like I left something too, but I can’t remember what. There was a point in which we were all asked if we’d like to say anything. I still remember my internal conversation. How stupid could I be to not have thought of that ahead of time? Of course there would be time for us to speak. What should I say? I have to say something. I can’t walk up there. Then the moment passed and my opportunity was lost forever. I carried guilt and shame for that for a long time. We rode in the hearse to the cemetery. It was raining, there were rifles and a wet, folded flag. It was a blur of sadness.

I watched as the grief took shape differently in each of his loved ones. I learned that there is no right way to experience grief. Though at the time I was taught that it always came in stages and I was ready to move through them as quickly as possible if it meant it wouldn’t hurt so badly anymore.

Now, after losing you I know that grief is more like a rollercoaster or waves in an ocean. There are ups and downs, twists and turns, and even undertows lurking in the calm of happiness. Grief isn’t linear and however we experience it is the right way for each individual. It can be hard to understand it or see it for what it is when someone else is grieving the same loss differently than ourselves. It’s important to give them and ourselves grace because the grief that follows such an incredible love for someone is lifelong and ever changing.

My grief for my dad is now made of much less anger and guilt. Instead it’s replaced by other losses, like the inability to call up his voice in my mind and the reality that he never met his granddaughters. Though I do smell him in clouds of nonexistent smoke and think of him very, very often. His face is now a happy one in my memory, sometimes pushing me on a tire swing or singing next to me in the car. Though photographs remind me that the picture in my head isn’t always a completely accurate representation of how he really looked. While it’s still there and I still miss him, I am glad the weight of that loss has lightened with time.

My grief for you is similar in that it has gotten a little lighter, but it is ever present. It differs in the ways one would expect the loss of a parent to differ from the loss of a child. The pain is always there, just hidden, sometimes much better than others. Most recently it hit me hard at the playground. Your sisters made a sweet little friend, she was older than you would have been now, but watching the three of them play and laugh together made me ache for the dreams I’d had of the three of you doing just that. I’m that moment it was like I’d lost you all over again, in the laughter of three little girls. I find that while I cannot always predict those moments, I am better and better prepared for them all the time.

I hope that whatever it is that comes after this has put you together with my dad so he can know one granddaughter for now. Perhaps you indulge in entenmann’s rich frosted donuts together, always two at a time of course. I love you Nora and I miss you all the time.

Love,

Mommy

Originally written to Nora on April 22, 2022.