Good Grief
Fifteen years ago, today, I went for a walk around my neighborhood alone and contemplated what being a half-orphan would mean for me as an eleven year old. The news of my dad’s death was delivered the night before, when the other members of the single mother’s small group at church came to our house to help my one mother deal this blow to six children at once. To this day I am so thankful to that community of women for making sure we all had arms we could be held in to hear those unexpected words. I thought about how my dad had passed on June 10th, the day I was at this little beauty pageant/ modeling gig event. Miles away in Maryland and unbeknownst to me, my dad was breathing his last breath and my life would never be the same. But that wasn’t quite true, which is what I realized horrendously on that walk. My life would remain the exact same because I hadn’t lived with my dad since I was four years old in Miami. Since then I had only seen him briefly, once, when I was in second grade and he mysteriously appeared at my house in Georgia, only to be ushered away by police. I hated that something as monumental and pivotal as my dad dying would realistically change nothing in my day to day life. I hated that even though I felt like the world should stop, not only would it keep going without him, but even my own world remained unaffected.
Captured on June 10th 2005
Now I have the vernacular to say that I felt then, and have felt every moment since, like an imposter in my grief. Who am I to mourn this man that I barely even knew? I remember sitting silently at my dad’s memorial service and listening to my cousin Ross (my older cousin on my MOM’S side of the family) speak in detail about conversations and memories that he had gotten to share with MY dad thinking how unfair the whole situation was. Any potential memories I could have shared and even still hold onto now are potentially false memories that could have been created to try to grasp onto the tiniest bits of information I had about this man. I’d had every intention of making new memories with him- had planned to visit my Aunt Christine’s house and see him again that Father’s Day weekend- and the rug was pulled so abruptly out from under me. Every time I think about it, it knocks the wind out of me all over again. As my therapist said this week on our call when I explained my family history, I lost my dad twice. I experienced his absence since I was four years old and then all over again at eleven. And the second time was permanent. There was no longer any point in wishing on birthday candles for a reunion that wouldn’t happen, no more reason to keep up that stream in my prayer life. He was ~gone~ gone, and while that changed nothing in my physical life, I’ve never really been the same since.
Commissioned by Imani Fitch
15 years have gone by, but I feel like I was somehow emotionally frozen in place by this defining moment in my adolescence. Every hurt and every disappointment, no matter how minor, can be (and is) unraveled into a string of pain that all begins at the moment of losing my dad forever. (For arguments sake it could have all begun at age four with the first loss as well.) It’s really been a cyclone and my dad’s death is dragged into every new pain and makes even minor situations unbearable. When other people experience loss, I feel my own pain all over again and my heart aches in a way that suggests I can relate to their pain, while my mind tells me that I have no rights to my personal hurt because their losses were much greater.
The only picture I have of me with my dad.
At the center of all of my own personal grief and despair of having been deprived of my dad is knowing that it is ultimately his fault that I never got to know him. Even though I can say without a shadow of doubt that I know he loved me, his actions are what led to my parent’s separation and the decision that he wasn’t allowed to be present in our lives. And even if he had been, realistically I know that when someone is mentally ill and refuses to admit they have a problem, more chaos ensues. My life probably wouldn’t be all rainbows and sunshine if I’d gotten to actually be raised by my dad, as hard as that is to reconcile (and as much as I’d like to imagine my life would be perfect if I’d had him in my life.) It may have just been God’s protection that allowed me to grow-up in a single-mother household. God’s absolute Sovereignty withstanding, I just hate that while authoring my dad’s life, God didn’t also write-in his redemption-arc.
A note I found in my uncle’s house in 2017 that was from my dad. And which I promptly took.
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