My dad died nearly 8 months ago and some stuff is finally starting to settle.
There are realities that hit you little by little as you grieve; brutal truths that you’ve probably really known for a lot longer but that you couldn’t quite wrap your brain around enough to claim as your own then.
Maybe it’s your mind’s way of protecting itself from bearing too much sadness, too much trauma at one time.
One of the things that’s become clear in recent weeks is the simple reality that my life will not get better.
That’s not to say that I won’t feel better or that the sadness won’t eventually recede somewhat or that there won’t be really, really good moments. (I’ve experienced all of this in the time following my father’s passing).
I know in the future, that I’ll laugh bombastically and eat decadent meals and be moved by music, and I’ll travel and dance and create and feel moments of true joy and contentment.
When I say that I know that life won’t get better though, it’s admitting the sobering truth that despite all of these incredible, gratitude-inducing, live-giving things that will surely come, my life will simply never be as good as it was when my father was in this world.
It will never be better than it was before he left.
It couldn’t be.
No matter who or what I add to my journey or what victories or successes they bring, they will never replace the part that’s gone—the part uniquely shaped like him.
It would be an insult to my father and to his unimaginable impact in my life to expect otherwise.
I guess that’s why the word loss, while seemingly incomplete says it all pretty darn well as you grieve.
When you do lose someone close to you, you learn to make peace with attrition; with the cruel, horrible subtraction that death delivers. You realize that there was a time (now in the past) when your family was whole and that no matter what the future brings, it will always remain less-than.
I imagine it’s not unlike the way a new amputee feels as they move though life without a leg.
They adapt, they learn to cope and they relearn to navigate daily tasks. They find creative, amazing ways to do everything that they did before, but it’s always a reaction to damage.
It’s always an attempt to respond to invasive intrusion, an effort to get as close as they can to wholeness, to completeness and yet there’s just no way to get it all back.
You live, but you live with a limp.
That’s what grieving is.
That’s what the attrition causes.
You do move forward, but it’s only because it’s the only direction you have left if you want to keep living.
You take every painful, awkward, desperate step it takes to keep walking, and you try to go as far as you can given what you’ve lost.
This probably comes across as pretty depressing stuff, but for me it’s a gift, helping me clearly see and appreciate the present.
Most likely, this won’t be the last time I’ll grieve someone I love, and when that unwanted day and time does come, I’ll look back and remember these days and these times as ones when I was a little closer to whole.
For everyone reading this in The Grief Valley, struggling to take the next excruciating step: be encouraged.
Yes, you’ve lost something irreplaceable but you haven’t lost it all.
There’s still a good, beautiful, blessing-filled path for you to walk.
So walk on—even if it is with a limp.
