I knew it was coming.  I mean I wasn’t sure when it was coming, but that chick in the podcast was going to die.

Many think I walk around with headphones in because I don’t want to talk to anyone all day.  I mean I wrote about the 4 levels of #dttm (don’t talk to me) and employ them on the regular.  Really though, I am listening to books and to podcasts and to music and all of that again.

I knew by episode 3 of Dying for Sex, the story of a woman with terminal breast cancer, that the main character was going to eventually succumb.  What I didn’t know was that when it happened in episode 6, it was going to bring me to tears thinking about my dad while walking into Restaurant Depot (think Costco for restaurants).  It brought me back to a singular thought.

I still am not alright with losing my dad.  Not really at all and by not alright I mean, I don’t know if I’ve  grieved, or if I’m at a stage of grieving, or if I ever will be. What I feel, if it’s possible, is completely empty.  As if empty is an actual feeling. It’s at the least, representative.

I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t affected me completely.  I’m at best, 50% of the usual me and really, I’m not sure if I’ll get back to that 100%.  Really though, it’s not just the loss. It’s what it seemed to trigger in me. Depressive by nature, the last nearly 2 years I’ve been mostly in the blacker parts of life. I’m not sure if that causes stress or just amplifies it, but it makes me question everything more.  I didn’t think that was even possible.

Reading that paragraph again and I am again reminded to temper the baring of my soul, but really I’m not sure who I am tempering for.  I’m mostly okay. It’s just hard and until the last week or so, I didn’t realize how it was jumping off point for a rough couple of years.  

I’d say I miss my dad but it’s more than that.  He and I had a good relationship but weren’t what I’d say talk on the phone every week close.  He was a man from a different time, and that time gave him an economy of words and emotions. He of course wanted to talk to me frequently, but those talks were short and to the point.  A couple minutes a call. I knew he loved and that he was proud of me. Really, is there much more needed?Turns out yes, though I can’t put my finger on it now. I never called him for council much, nor did I share everything. I don’t know that we have to share all to have a good relationship with someone. The irony now is that I want to ask him how to make missing him not so hard. How to not let concrete fill the void his death left, hardening me more, closing me off to more and more life..

I know grief is a fluid thing for everyone. It’s not that I was prepared or unprepared.  I am lucky, I lost a couple grandparents when I was 8 and almost 30, other than that, I haven’t experienced loss with such proximity. Like many things, I never even considered what grief is or was or how it would affect me.  I didn’t know rogue waves would wash over me in a store parking lot when a podcast girl died. And I still don’t know what to expect.

This coming Tuesday would have been my dad’s 90th birthday, a milestone I hope to reach one day. I of course don’t know how, if at all, that will hit me.  Maybe it will be nothing and maybe it will be devastating. Too soon to tell. 

As I think about how to handle my new realizations of how much losing him has hit me, I do try and think of how exactly to fill the void. Anecdotal stories are like a sprinkle of sand in the grand canyon that’s an empty heart. 

To try and live like someone else is also a recipe for disaster so that won’t work either. To wonder what he would do in a certain situation. Taking best guesses, holding yourself to the standard of a ghost. None of that can make things any better.

So instead, I’ll let the tears come when they come. I’ll do my best to be a good husband and dad above all else and I’ll continue to miss my dad.

#hugsandhi5s