If you could tell people something, tell them what is true, what is true about grief and love and loss, something they do not know, or can’t know, what would it be? If you could address them, what would be said?
You might start with: “what you don’t know… ” or: “what does not show…”
Dear Dad,
The first time I remember seeing you cry, you’d just found out your grandma passed. I remember standing in the mudroom, my bare feet against the cold red tiles. You were sitting, then standing, in the half bath. I could see you through the doorways. You were really crying. Ugly crying. Gut wrenching tears, retching sounds, and pain. This is my first memory of grief, of a broken heart.
When I think back, so many of my first memories of emotion are of you. You never hid it well. Your anxiety when the plane took off. Your indignation, frustration, and desire to protect us. Your laughter. Your competitive nature, pride, and greatest disappointment.Your hugs and your anger. From the bottom of your lows to the top of your highs. You would emote everything. But, only around us, only around friends. In public… you were stone cold.
I don’t think I noticed at first. Not until other people brought it to my attention. Then I saw it. I saw the ‘scary’ version of you other people saw. Back against the wall, hat and sunglasses on, straightfaced, quiet, and so physically present. You were intimidating. To this day and forever I think I’ll wonder why you presented that side of you to the world.
I’m not sure if who I present to the world has changed much in some ways. I know there are parts of me that I don’t share. I rarely talk about my suicidal thoughts or my very real diagnosis of BPD. I don’t like crying in front of other people. I struggle to share my thoughts on my body.
But I’m outspoken. I’m loud, I overshare, and I don’t always know when to stop. I can talk for hours. I love to debate. I know I get over excited, talk too fast, and interrupt so much more often than I wish I did. I value communication. I always have. And in my grief I think that is also true… but it’s different.
Those other things that I don’t share much, I don’t want to share. I want to share my grief. I want to explore the thoughts and feelings, the intricacies and complications. I long for someone I can express all of that to. Someone who will offer insight, a dialogue. Several someone’s. But more often than not, when I come to the fork in the road, to express my grief or not. I end up swallowing back the burning tears, biting my tongue to hold in the frustration, and trying to breath my way past the heavy thoughts sitting on my chest.
Sometimes I try, I take a few steps down the road less traveled. Sometimes the people I’m trying to take those steps with, just aren’t there. They’re taking a different path. Sometimes they’d love to, but their emotional bags are already full, or they’re hot on the trail of another idea they have to interject. Sometimes they’re uncomfortable, they don’t know how to walk that road with me. And so somehow, 9 out of ten times, I back pedal and end up on the road I’ve traveled a hundred times in the last year. I start swallowing, biting, and breathing… I hope it passes. It physically hurts.
It physically hurts when I do express it too, in some ways it hurts more. I open up the gates and it gets hard to breath, hard to see, hard to talk. The burning, heavy shit courses through my body. I heave, retch, and ugly cry. Just like you. In that moment, I think my body might explode, my heart might actually break, my lungs might give out. But eventually it’s over and I feel okay. I feel good, alive, and stronger than before. For a little while, I know I’m going to be okay.
At some point I have to wonder if the added pain from every time I swallow it back, if that pain doesn’t add up to be more than the moment I think I’ll die from it. If each time I hold it back, it adds up. I end up causing myself more pain in the end. Before you died, Dad, I knew that emotions could hurt. I knew I could hate myself so much it hurt. I knew I could feel so alone it hurt, so ashamed it hurt. Now I know it can hurt to feel disbelief, anger, confusion, and especially love.
It’s cheesy. I know. I miss you.
Coffee & Conundrums 