A letter to my dad (because the dark, angry, devastating side of losing someone actually never goes

10 years ago, in April of 2008, my dad suddenly passed away. At the time I was 17 years old. Now I’m 27 years old, so, I decided to write a letter to tell my side of the story.

Dear Dad,

It’s 1 a.m. and this April means that you’ve been gone for ten years. Ten, whole, years. And it’s surprising to me that I still can’t sleep at night sometimes; I had to flip open my laptop tonight to find a way to channel my feelings into something constructive, because I still can’t believe you’re just, gone. Your physical presence has been filled with emptiness and silence. So, I decided to write you a letter, because the last ten years have been a really hard transition for me, and I need you to know what it was like from my side of the story.

The human psyche plays evil tricks on a young girl who has just lost her dad at 17 years old. I remember the days shortly after you left, such heavy dark days. I remember my thought process clear as crystal: I told myself at night that it wasn’t too late, I could still defy the laws of physics, and time, and gravity, and space, and find a way to go back in time to reverse what happened; to resuscitate your body; to breathe life back into you and make it all go away.

"There had to be a way to make things right again, because the weight and the pain I held in my heart made me feel like I was dying too."

Days ticked on, nights felt empty and long. Your funeral came and went, and they cremated you, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, but I knew there had to still be a way to glue each tiny ash back together to turn you back into the living, breathing person you were; there had to be a way to make things right again, because the weight and the pain I held in my heart made me feel like I was dying too. I reassured myself that the world was an illusion, a psychotic dream. During the day I’d wait for the phone to ring, for someone to assure me this sick, twisted prank was over, or I’d stare at the front door, sometimes for too long, and would convince myself that the shadow made by the coat rack was you standing behind the door. I’d open it to let you back inside, but you were never there.

Too many people told me “time will heal the pain” and that there’d be a day that I’d be happy again. And it’s true, time does help you forget the pain, or in other words you don’t think about the loss you’ve experienced as often. I thought about you every millisecond after you left. I was swollen from salty tears, demobilized from a broken heart, aching with the pain that comes after such a big loss. People tried to make me feel better and to take my mind elsewhere, but I wanted to just sit and soak in the misery. It was like this feeling of voluntary drowning. "If I sat around thinking about how different my life is without you in it, I know that I'd sit around in my defeated tears, holding a bitter grudge with life and the world."

Now, I’m not sure how often I think about you. You pop into my head now and then, maybe when your favourite songs play, when I see a photo of you or when someone mentions an old memory. It’s the mind’s way of helping us to move on and helping us to function, because if I sat around thinking about how different my life is without you in it, I know that I’d sit around in my defeated tears, holding a bitter grudge with life and the world.

This year I turned 27 and I can’t believe that you haven’t been around to see me grow, to watch me transform into someone entirely different than I was at 17. I’m destroyed over the fact that you won’t be here for the day of my future wedding; that the children I maybe one day have won’t ever get to meet you, and that the only memory they will have of you is the photos I give to them, and the stories I tell them about you. I hate that you are reduced to merely stories dad. You were always the storyteller, and you were a person who deserves so much better of an introduction than just old stories and photographs. So full of life, so thoughtful, caring, hardworking, lively, funny and genuine, that there’s no possible way I’ll be able to truly convey who you were in just a few stories.

"And having to carry the weight of the fact that your father is reduced to a mere image in your head is so devastatingly hard, that only people who have lost someone very close in their lives will understand it." Where I was then and where I’m at now are two completely different places, but the journey of grief is so, so strange. There are countless stages, but the movement isn’t always forward; the progress isn’t always linear. I’m at this strange point somewhere in the middle, where you feel so far away, the image of you is merely a faded one that is burned and engraved into the back of my mind… there is no longer anything concrete about you, nothing physical or real. And having to carry the weight of the fact that your father is reduced to a mere image in your head is so devastatingly hard, that only people who have lost someone very close in their lives will understand it. You’re just an image, and a fragmented image at that. I’ll think of your eyes, your mustache, your smile, your hands… but sometimes it’s hard for me to piece them all together. Sometimes I still think that I’ll wake up one day and you’ll be alive again and things will go back to the way they were, but I know it’s just false hope that my imagination likes to feed to me now and then.

People who have lost parents at a young age will understand these feelings, and people who haven’t might not. I had to try and finish growing on my own without you and in many ways, I feel like that growth went on a different path and was paralyzed without your presence. I often think about every conversation we would have had, every car ride we would have shared, every movie we would have watched, every meal we would have enjoyed, every trip we would have went on, every camp fire we would have sat around, every time I would have needed a shoulder to cry on, or someone to talk to, or a person to just be beside me… and these are all dark vacant voids that will never be filled and that have left holes scattered throughout the road of my past and my future.

"At times I feel like time is pushing me forward like a giant tsunami, and I’m still trying my hardest to tread backwards in water, because I know you’re back there, somewhere in my past."

Today, the memory of you has never felt farther away to me, and I’m terrified that as I continue to move into the future, against my will or not, that I will only continue to get farther away from you, away from the memory of you, away from the day you left me, and away from the possibility that I can still maybe go back in time and change that fate of events. At times I feel like time is pushing me forward like a giant tsunami, and I’m still trying my hardest to tread backwards in water, because I know you’re back there, somewhere in my past.

So, I’ll just continue to walk forward, with my head occupied on other things, focusing on the goals and ambitions I’ve made for myself. And I know that I’ll be okay, and that I will accomplish great things. But I want you to know that there won’t be a day that goes by that I don’t miss you, and that I don’t wish I could hear your voice one more time; to be beside you laughing; to talk to you; to see your loving, gentle face; to say, “I love you”. There is truly nothing like the bond between a daughter and father, and that has always been my strength – knowing how invincibly strong our bond was while you were here, and how much love we shared between the two of us. I love you dad, always. Sincerely your daughter,

Chelsea

#grief #lettertodad #loss #griefjourney #griefawareness #death