Some people have asked me why I haven't "gotten over" the death of my father yet? Asides from making me extremely angry; that question has prompted me to answer why rather than lashing out in rage and resentment.
When I was 8 years old, my mother went off the rails emotionally (due to emotional scarring during her internment during the Second World War). My dad and I had to pick up the pieces. He was my emotional rock, because as a child, I couldn't understand what was going on. He became my one stable point in a sea of emotional chaos; he protected me. He tried to do that; all while carrying a job and making sure that our financial needs were met as well.
No, I wasn't entirely protected...I still got the fall-out from it when my father was at work though. I had to protect myself then. My mother was suicidal most of the time. She either tried to throw herself down a well or tried to OD on medication. Yet through all of that I somehow managed to try to maintain good grades in school and get through. Yet every day in the back of my mind even after she seemed to get better. "Is this the day she's going to flip her lid?"
If there was one constant, it was my dad. He tried to make a life for me. He, above all, tried to hold himself as an example for me. Though the world may crumble around you, you stand strong and do what you have to do to hold back the tide. That's what a man has to do.
Every day I'm wondering if I am holding back the tide or whether I'm failing miserably. I'm wondering how I'm holding up this facade of being "strong" when I feel weak inside. Everyday, even though I don't think I've given myself enough time to grieve properly, I get up in the morning, take my kids to school and bring them home; try to offer my children a stable place that they feel protected...and try to get through the day and make my way in this world.
I told my dad I loved him, just before he went and he knew it, but did he know just how thankful I was for him, his guidance, his acceptance of me; his love for me that he rarely ever said but tried to show in actions rather than in words? That, I don't know, and it will forever haunt me that I could never verbalize it at the time of his death.
So don't try and rush me through my grief. Just let me grieve in my own pace and in my own time. I haven't neglected the family, I haven't stopped paying attention to the kids except when they annoy the hell out of me. I haven't stopped eating, I haven't sunk into the depths of depression where I have no will to live (I have things I need to do with my life yet to even think of dying). I may be a grouchy son-of-a bitch, but I've always been one. That has nothing to do with my father's death.
Just understand that I miss my Dad, that I will always miss him, until the day that I die and that from now on some days will be better than others...but there will always be an underlying sadness that just doesn't "GO AWAY". Above all...don't tell me to "GET OVER IT"! Death isn't something that I can just get over...especially the death of a loved one who was an integral part of my life, who practically had to raise me as well as be the breadwinner of the house when the other half wasn't emotionally there. My wife was close to her mother, I"m close to my dad. And when I lost my dad, it was like losing a part of me.
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