This I believe (full version)

Grieving is Not Hiding, Grieving is Living


Five years ago I watched the sun fall beyond a horizon of clouds, on a three thousand mile
journey home. I took comfort in the solitude of a mostly empty plane. “The Scientist” by Coldplay
played continuously on my mp3 player.“Nobody said it was easy. It's such a shame for us to part. Nobody said it was easy. No one ever said it would be this hard.” The words played over and over
again as I cried for hours on end. In under five days, I had received a phone call, flown back to my
second home in Indiana, planned a memorial service, and sorted through a house of belongings and memories, keeping what I could in the little space I had in my suitcase. Most of these items I took home with me where letters, photos, poems, and gifts in which I had mailed to my Dad throughout the years. When I attended the memorial service many people approached me; Co workers, friends and family that where struck by the sudden death of this great man. They approached me with their swollen red eyes as they continuously said how sorry they were. I cried in the arms of many strangers, our one connection was my father who lay in a casket a few feet away. The sheriff that responded to the 911 call even attended the service. I asked this man a burning question. “Did my dad suffer?” I asked him. “No,” he replied, “he went peacefully.” The voices of these wonderful people haunted me on that plane ride home. Although I had buried my father, and talked of his death, it didn't feel final to me. I knew he was dead, but I couldn't stop believing that there had been some terrible mix up. When I caught myself in silence over those five days, I often starred out into the open fields of Indiana; I was waiting for my dad to come home. I didn't feel that he was really gone. As I starred out the window on that plane, into the horizon of clouds, I wondered if he was out their somewhere. Five days couldn't possibly prepare me to return to a life in which I would be forced to live on without the most important person in my life.
I felt the impatient rhythm of time forcing me to keep moving through all of this. When I returned home I went back to work the next day, pretending that I was fine with what had happened. When people asked how I was, I avoided an honest answer. Instead of taking time off, I did the opposite. I took on a second job. I put pressures on a new relationship too develop to quickly. I did everything I could to make sure that I wouldn't be alone with myself. I feared this the most. I had always prided myself in regards to my independence, but now this terrified me because I didn't want to think about those five days. I was not grieving, I was hiding. I wanted to remain on a schedule where I was offered constant distraction. This was what I wanted, but not what I needed. I constructed all of this because I didn't want reality too set in that I was indeed fatherless at the age of 19.
Some time later, I was driving home when “The Scientist” started playing on the radio, unexpectedly. For months, I had been able to successfully dormant my emotions, but as the words passed through me it brought to life the pain. I broke down in my car and cried for hours. I finally understood that the avoidance and denial I was protecting, with such great measures, was not going to heal me. It was time to stop hiding and start grieving. I made decisions to slow things down in my life. I was trying to hard to be something of perfection, when really my outside image was not allowing an honest reflection of what I was really going through internally. I needed to take courage to face my fear of solitude by ending a relationship that I was using for the wrong reasons. I built the strength and courage I needed to spend hours alone, sorting through my Dad's keepsake box that I had tucked away in a closet. I read the letters I wrote to him and the letters that he wrote to me. I looked at pictures, read books I had given him, and read poetry I had made for him. It was alone that I faced my worst fear, saying goodbye to my dad. In doing so I became human again. I let my emotions run its course. I was finally releasing all of the anger and resentment that I held inside for being fatherless at such a young age. I asked some very difficult questions in this time of grieving. It was as if I climbed a mountain with rage, and when I got to the peak, I released it into the universe by screaming and yelling. “Why?” I screamed, “why?”
March 18th will be the mark of my Dad's unexpected death. It has now been nearly five years. Over these five years I knew that keeping my Dad's memory alive would be important. Every year I request time off from work on the day that he died. On that day, I grieve. I read the scrapbook I made for him, I sing, I laugh out loud, I cry, I even talk to him. It is on that day of every year that I don't hide my sadness. “Today, I miss my dad,” I say to those around me. I release a part of my sadness into the universe and in return I feel relief. Grieving, I have learned, takes a great deal of honesty. I owed myself that honesty. I miss my Dad every day, but its through this grieving that I feel close to him. I hadn't felt the same way when he had first died. I needed to remove my safety blanket before I could start this process. I believe that grieving is not hiding, grieving is living. Grieving is making that journey up that mountain. You may leave with a lot of grief weighing you down, but you will return with a lighter soul and a heavier heart.