Losing Dad Part Four Unreconciled

We didn't make amends. There was so much more to be said and done. Or undone.

I still can't believe he is gone. The thing is, I feel as though he is still here somehow. I'm not sure whether it is the remnants of denial or there is still a possibility that we can continue healing our relationship.I wonder if he is here in spirit. I feel it's a bit of both.

I'm not a religious person and so I have no set thoughts on life and death. This can make times of despair very hard I guess, but at the same time I feel as though it creates endless opportunities. I believe that anything is possible.

Lately I've been thinking what if your relationship with a person can continue after they have passed on. This brings me some peace and also hope.The thing about death I believe we all find the most troubling is that our communication with the person who has left this life has come to an end. What if it doesn't.

I still talk to dad sometimes. I might be driving in the car alone thinking about an issue that I'm facing and I'll say out loud "Dad, please help me if you can."

We used to write many emails to one another. I miss that more than anyone could know. Someone recently suggested that I could still write to him. I know they were just trying to help, and it is really a great suggestion, but the thought of it made me feel ill. One night in a state of desperation and despair I decided to try it out. I typed in his email address and his name immediately popped up as it always did. I typed in the Subject line then clicked into the blank space. My stomach churned and extreme anxiety overtook me. I felt so afraid and upset. I just couldn't do it. It actually put me in a pretty bad place.

I wrote a poem instead and that helped a little. I think what upset me so much about writing an email to him was that I knew I wouldn't get a response. It was a reminder that I'd never hear from him again. Writing a poem was more about reflecting on my feelings and putting them out there. I was writing to him, about him, but not expecting a response. This made it much easier.

How fragile we are when we lose someone important to us. The smallest things will remind us and cause us unimaginable pain. It could just be a word you hear, or a song. It could be seeing something you know they would like or suddenly thinking of a question only they could answer. How your heart hurts when this happens.

It's been two and a half months since I lost dad. People have said that time heals. I do feel far less frantic now, and less sadness surrounds me. I'm calm. At one stage I honestly believed that the darkness I felt would devour me.

What killed me the most was feeling as though dad and I didn't get to completely heal our strained relationship. I was devastated that our progress had been cut so short before we could get to the beautiful place I know we would have found ourselves.

Now I feel that this is not the case. I believe that we can continue our journey. I don't know exactly how, but I'm just going to go with the flow of this feeling and keep working, keep hoping and keep believing that somehow dad is still with me on this.

They say that it's never too late to change things. You'd think that death would cancel this out. But I don't believe so. I think that as long as a person is in your heart and mind they are alive and you do still have a relationship with them.

I'm going to continue doing the things I know would make my dad proud and imagine that he is watching on. I'm going to imagine that I'm making him happy. I will continue to work on our relationship and look forward to someday reconciling.






#_life
#_death
#_sadness
#_grief
#_hope
#_belief
#_faith
#_differences
#_parents
#_loss
#_love
#_mourning

%selfavenue