Forgive me for a garbled post, I’m trying to articulate my thoughts and feelings but it all feels a bit of a jumble.
My dad died 9 weeks ago.Every time I say to people that I’m still feeling sad, they say “of course – it’s time for all the firsts now. First birthdays, first Christmas etc without him”. Sometimes they go on to ask if there has been any recent family event where his presence was missed.
But it’s not that. I understand that those days will be hard but it feels like there’s an underlying assumption that everything should now be ok until those days come along. And it’s not ok. It has been less than three months and I’m still adjusting to life without my dad in it. We haven’t had any big anniversary days of events which he should have attended. In any normal year, this would have just been a normal, fairly dull few months. But it’s different. It’s the first thing on my mind every morning when I wake up. It’s a bit like the early days of covid when we were all trying to adjust to a new reality and going through a kind of collective trauma, while also keeping on top of work and other commitments; except this time I feel it’s only me who has a significant new reality and trying to adjust while everyone else is expecting business as usual.
I don’t think my reaction is unusual in any way and nothing to worry about. I’m just sad and that should be expected. I’ve had 45 years of this family situation and fewer than three months to adjust to life without my dad. I’m supporting my mum who really isn’t coping well and still dealing with various administrative stuff, transferring stuff out of his name and into my mum’s. And all of that just brings back the fact that he has gone. I’m also still a bit traumatised by his final weeks, dealing with a horrible illness where he was in pain and incoherent. There was a sense of relief with his death, that he wasn’t suffering anymore but sadness that the man who existed before the illness took him is gone forever.
All this talk of firsts seems to trivialise the fact that I’m feeling sad right now and every day. In time I’ll feel less sad, and there will also be some spikes of more sadness along the way – probably around these firsts – but all of this is normal and it’s not just about those times. It feels like people are insinuating that there’s something wrong with me to feel sad at times outside these firsts. Like I should have been over it all as soon as we left the wake and then living a normal life until the first family birthday rolls around.
I don’t know why I’m writing this. I just need to get it off my chest.