“But in pain there is beauty, and I’m finally ready to discover that.”
I asked my Instagram following what they wanted to know about related to mental health, soul quests, therapy etc. I replied with a video talking a lot about therapy. I’ve also talked about things related to the last year, including this gratitude challenge that I am doing for myself.
There was one person I specifically didn’t answer. And she is the only one that asked about this particular subject. But again, I didn’t answer.
The topic was grief.
I’ve sat with this for a month now knowing all along that it’s been in the back of mind. I didn’t tell my therapist about this, and I vowed to myself last year that I wouldn’t omit the truth from my therapist. I wouldn’t lie about anything. Let’s just call a spade a spade. If you are lying to your therapist, what the literal hell are you even doing in that office?
A month. And then I told him.
3 days, and 3 sessions passed and I didn’t mention it. He asked why I hadn’t answered the person instead of why I didn’t mention it to him. And I said, “Because it hurts.” And it also means I have to visit a container that I thought was sealed closed.
This is something that I know I have needed to visit for a year now. I brought it up in the beginning of my therapy when we were discussing the death of my dad. For years I thought that I had reconciled with the death of my him. I think what I have discovered is that my years of hiding behind having the ability to talk about him dying, hasn’t actually made me okay with the loss. This is why I ignored the question, and ultimately why I haven’t tackled my therapy homework from last year…I was supposed to write a letter to my Dad.
I don’t know that you ever fully get over the death of someone. I think some people can. I think some people are able to put distance to the memory with time, but if you tap into the right heart space…the hurt is still there. So, I’ve avoided it. In the letter I was supposed to talk about why I think my Dad would be proud of me… and I can do that. But I also WANT to do a little more.
I’m not sharing this next portion for the whole world to see a conversation that I would hypothetically be having. No, that’s not why I am sharing this piece. Instead, for my 31st birthday, I am giving myself the present of release. Release of a weight that I have carried for so many unnecessary years. It’s going to hurt, I know. And not just when I write this. But in pain is beauty, and I am finally ready to discover that.
“Dad,”
I’ve already cringed writing that. Let me try again.
“Hey Dad,
I haven’t talked to you in a while. I’ve been needing to do this for some time now, but I want you to know how deeply painful this feels, so inherently I put it off. In full transparency, I haven’t felt ready enough to do this for years, because I knew once I started, there wasn’t any going back. But I’m going to start.
I’ve always wanted the chance to say good-bye to you properly. Not because I am not okay with death, we all eventually die, but mainly because I think I know how alone you felt when you died. I think I know how alone you felt a lot of your life. I’ve felt that at times too Dad. That being said, this isn’t to take away from the fact that you played the martyr syndrome well. But from that, I am learning to break the generational patterns of repeating history. I will not play victim. I refuse to continue to let your death, other deaths, or childhood trauma be my victim space. I’m going to come out of this, because your pain has given me the strength now.
I have extremely vivid dreams and memories of you, not all bad, but certainly a few bad. You had a temper from hell, but for some reason now when I think of it, it doesn’t scare me. I could always tell you cared deeply about your children even though you weren’t really fit to be a dad past the time that I was 3.
Dad, like many, you got lost in the rat race and this is where you lost yourself. This is where you lost your family.
I know that has to be hard to hear, but in my heart, I don’t think your mistakes were out of ill intent. I think you got lost in the money, the things you believed you were supposed to provide as a man, and how far you had made it. You got lost in making yourself fit into a role that I’m not sure you always entirely wanted. Unfortunately, you used drugs to cope and get you through and with that, the recipe for disaster was pretty just written on the wall. I know this wasn’t forever, and I will acknowledge that you worked many times to battle your own internal demons.
I know that you wanted to be the best, and that you wanted to feel like you were enough. I see that now.
Dad, I didn’t write this for so long because in all my really good memories of you, there actually are really bad ones too. And I really don’t know that you every acknowledged that. I don’t know that I wanted to even accept that. Because I know how badly you just wanted to be connected, and really, to anyone. I used to say that I got gypped in reference to you. In therapy I said, “I feel like I got gypped.” But gypped on what?
I know now. I know that I never really felt like I got to know the full version of you.
I remember memories of you and all the animals. The parrots. The fact that you would get us any toy we wanted for our birthdays or holidays. I remember Chuckie Cheese visits when you had us during your every-other-weekend visitation schedule. I remember how you let us watch R-rated movies that mom would have died if she knew we were watching.
But, as I got older and you had suffered another heartbreak, another divorce, and your own grief, something shifted in you. There were days when I realized that you weren’t all bad anymore. You were actually a human again. This stint was small. Probably really only during our last 2 years together. I felt like you had started to “normalize.” That you were this person I heard people talk about, but had never met.
Dad, you taught me my love for animals. I know that people love their animals, I know that, but you taught me how important their friendship was. And that is when I learned I needed to know how to take care of them and provide for them, as they did for me. The friendship has to go both ways. It was you that taught me I was going to need this friendship in life. My soul was going to need this connection.
I get my temper from you, but I’ve decided to work through that. After all, anger is really only a surface emotion when you start to think about that. Instead, I won’t let my ego get in the way anymore. Dad, it’s wild. I have started to identity what triggered a negative reaction before, and stop it. I think this is where you would be proud. I want to believe you possessed the ability to do this, but I just don’t think you had the right tools. So, with that, I will make sure to always immerse myself in an environment that allows for this type of work. Not only for me, but for the half of me that is you.
Dad, I look more like you than I do mom. Sure, I have her nose, but I know that I have your eye shape, your smirk, and your weird big toe. I’ve always related more closely to you, but I never knew why. That was until I found your journal entries about being a child. The tantrums, you had them. The lack of connection with your parents, I see that now. Wanting so badly to be heard and understood…I know that feeling well.
But I am going to make you a deal. I will never stop trying to break those patterns. It will be hard, but this is when I will channel your fiery temper, and put it to use.
I don’t sleep like you didn’t as well. As years have progressed, I numbed that. I turned my sadness into anxiety with age, and leaned to western medicines too. Mainly because like you, the feelings of pain scared me as well. I’m working on this, but I do miss being able to find you in the living room, chain smoking a camel filter, and blasting The Sopranos. I found comfort in not being alone.
I’m sorry that we didn’t have more time together. I know that there are things that are coming that will remind me how I wish you were here to see me. I really wish you were here to walk me down the aisle. More than anyone will know. Not only because it is custom, but because I think you would be very proud of the man I get to call my husband.
Dad, he takes care of me like I know you would have wanted to take care of your wives at times. Maybe in a different life, or in a situation where you had the capacity to care for anyone besides yourself. Dad, he always pays me compliments, and has my best interests at heart. I never worry about him being unfaithful. I know that as a man you were tempted in areas that I think you later regretted. This was because you were acting out of ego, instead of your heart space.
But Dad, this is where I am choosing now to believe that there is beauty in pain. I know that your heart space gave me the ability to be raw, authentic, and write. Something I think you yearned for your whole life. I know that this pain I feel is meant to be something different. This is part of my story Dad. I don’t know what is next for me, but I know that my story was meant to help others, and to break generational patterns.
I know that if you could tell me what you want for me, it was for me to be genuinely happy. To get the things I really wanted in life. You wouldn’t want me to be a meek woman, but you would expect that I do so tactfully. So, as I learn to tame the ego, show up for myself, and process the pain, I promise your pain will not have been for nothing.
I’ve really missed you. Not the you that was distracted, but the you that I think I met when I was 14. The you that reminds me in every sad, grieving person there is still a small little child that wants so badly to be seen. I know you hadn’t felt seen since you lost your own connection with your Gram, or maybe even your whole life. But I wanted to let you know that I’ll carry it. My inner child will get seen, and in that I hope yours will too.
I used to hate when you would visit me in my dreams. Mainly because each time I would find myself waking up to a reality where you are dead. I don’t believe in a heaven or hell. Mainly because I believe that as human beings, we’re left to create our own heaven or hell in our time on Earth. However, you believed in reincarnation, and so for that I believe I’ll see you again. I just wasn’t ready until now.
I don’t believe you wanted to die, or even knew it was coming, but part of me thinks that you were ready to stop suffering. At the time the western world of medicine couldn’t peg a diagnosis for all of your physical pain and suffering over the years. Dad, in my heart I don’t think that you mentally needed to feel the anguish you had had for so long anymore.
I’ve avoided this for so long because the lump that brews when I tap into my own heart and think deeply about the loss of you, makes me shake in sadness. I used to wish you didn’t come in my dreams, but I am okay with it now. I am learning that grief doesn’t just go away. From time to time I will be reminded that I lost my dad when I was 16. But I am realizing that those moments of sheer agony have allowed me to create beauty. So, although you are not physically here anymore, I hope that when I do walk myself down the aisle, I won’t be alone. That you will know I am ready for you to show back up; however, that may be.
I’ll keep pushing Dad. Not just for my own wounded little child, but for yours too. I hope you know that the pain you felt for most of your life doesn’t need to be held onto anymore. And as I let mine go, I will let yours go too.
I’d like to talk again, so maybe I will write you when I can. I love you.
Until the next time,
- Al”
To the person that asked me to write about this:
Thank you. I know that you asked about this because right now you can’t wrap your head around what happened, and your brain is still trying to catch up to that feeling of loss in your heart. But for me, this was something I’ve been needing to visit for a very long time; all you did was ask the right question.
I hope that when you are ready, you will find the beauty in your pain. I hope that you will find comfort in your journey, and when you are ready to uncover the deep sorrow that your heart is feeling now, know that you are not alone. I wish that I could tell you that the pain goes away, but it doesn’t. The pain morphs with time into your lesson, and your own journey. It took me 15 years to find mine, and it wasn’t something that anyone could do for me. The numbing, and the avoidance though… that didn’t have to be done alone. If I can give you advice it would be to allow for the visits. Allow for the dreams, the hard memories, and the moments that seem painful. In those moments you are reminded that your dad will always be here, he never left you. Like myself, you just have to find where he lies within you and trust that he will visit again.
