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Grieving after 8 years. My story


Owly eye

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Hi.

This is my first post ever about my dad. I never wrote anything anywhere. It's been 8 years since my dad isn't here. Then, I was on my last year of highschool. I'm 26 now and I finally started grieving. 

Ok, this is hard. I write in english although I'm from Argentina and I speak spanish. But english helps me because spanish is too close, too familiar for me. 

We had a really rough time when he got ill, in 2008. He collapsed and was sent to intensive theraphy, with an pharmacologycal coma, for about two months. I still can't stand the look of the building when I pass by in a car. It's unbearable.

And when that happened, I wasn't even there. I was in a trip with my class, many miles away in the north of my country. I flew, with a friend that came with me, from that northern town to Buenos Aires because my dad was going into a very high risk open heart surgery and my family thought we had to say goodbye.

But he fucking made it, against all odds. And we would go there and visit him in the woo little minutes of visit we had, and play music he liked and talked to him, grabbing his hand.

I feel this time of my life is such a blur. I kept this so much time to myself. I saved it deep so I could avoid feeling like I'm feeling just now as I write this.

I just forget stuff. I was trying to cope, I guess. I remember I never learned well the medical specifics around my dad's illness. And now, trying to recall, I can just say that they could get him out of the coma, and he woke. He couldn't talk because of another surgery that they did to his throat. I don't remember why. I do remember sleeping in the couch of the super fancy restaurant in the upper floor of the building, and the waiter staring at me for my inappropiate behaviour. I couldn't care less.  

He was moved to another place. It was a rehabilitation center. It was painful only going in such a place. The guy in the bed next to my dad's was malnourished, pure skin and bones. We hanged out with his wife, a warm good lady. From this months I remember studying for my phisics exam in the coffee shop inside the place, and a few moments besides his bed. He was in pain. I don't think that it was physical. He was in real emotional pain in there. But he was silent.

I also remember (and this memory came a few weeks back, it was deeply burried in my heart) like a blackboard we had with some letters with magnets. It was for him to communicate.
I remember, also, his tight handwriting. I just loved his handwriting. And a note that he made to my mom, that was a quote from Serrat (a spanish musician) which can be translated to: "the woman I love doesn't need to defoliate a daisy every night". 

When he started talking, I was on a trip with my then boyfriend in the south of my country. I remembered we talked on the phone. I felt so guilty. I felt guilt for doing stuff for myself (like that trip) all the time during his illness. And I felt I did everything wrong. And my family would complain about how many times I went to visit him, at what time, it was a lot of pressure on me. And even HE got mad at me one time for not going to visit him and going to a concert in another city near Buenos Aires before visiting him. I didn't remember the fucking blackboard with the plastic letters but that scream went over my head so many times in all these years, so many times.

Of course he was angry. He couldn't do anything on his own. When he got out of that horrid place, he came home. But it was hell. He had like a hospital bed and he needed constant assistance, but he couldn't bare needing assistance. He always was very independent. His father died when he was 15, so he was in charge of his family, and they were poor. He carried a burden of responsability so much time.

He was depressed. He cried. I never saw him cry before. He was so tired. So tired of being a support for other people, and in silence. 

I was tired too. But that didn't matter to me. I just wanted to do what everyone around me wanted me to do. 

One morning I was sleeping at 11 am. And they called. They rushed us to the intensive therapy room. He wasn't there any more.

I hear my mom saying "when we were a couple, he always used to say that he wouldn't reach his fifties". And he barely did. He died shortly after his 50's party, where he was really deteriorated already.

Ok. I needed that cry.

In the moments after my dad's death, of course I didn't understand anything. I didn't understand life. My friends came, my boyfriend came and we cooked some supermarket cakes. What was happening? I didn't know. 

Not much time after, I was known in my family for being harsh, for not crying. 

I succeded in school with good grades.

My sister had panick attacks, she became depressed. She was in highschool, and had a remaining year to go. She had to take medicin. But eventually she got by.

My mom and dad had a retail business in a market area in our city. So my mom was left with a lot of stuff to take care of, financially mainly. When I graduated highschool, I started working there, of course. I had worked there while my dad was at home "recovering", the previous summer. I liked how proud he was with me and my sister when we went to the store to help.

So my mom worked every day, except for Sundays in the store. The rest of the weekend he would be in her room. Some weeks ago (I'm talking about now) my sister told me "Don't you remember she cried in her room all weekend?" Well, no. I don't.

I made sure she did not eat dinner alone. I talked to my sister for that not to happen. With mom, we talked about the chores she had to do. We talked about the business. I started working there in 2010 three times a week, and then, in 2011, I started working every day. 

I continued studying. I started a degree in literature in 2010 (doing the pre-course) and entered in 2011. I'm still struggling to finish it.

We didn't talk about dad. We didn't talk about what we would like to do with him if he hadn't die. We didn't talk about his illness, about how unfair it is that he is no longer with us.

Just now, my sister came into my room while I write this. And I try with all my heart to just pretend I'm studying in the computer or something. It must show in my eyes, but we really fight with showing one another how sad we are. How hard it is and how painful.

Like my mom in her room on Sundays, or me pretending not to hear her cry.

And this went on. And I even felt guilt that I did not think about my dad. What? Yes. I. thought. that. And for a very long time.

I'm not going to bore you guys much longer. I developed a lot of fears. I felt ghosts and I clinged to sad music, loss music, that I attached to a boyfriend in that moment.

I was angry. I remember, not much after he died (oh my god. it is really hard writing that every time!), i ran into a friend of an uncle in a waiting line of a Mc Donald's. He asked me if I was his daughter, and I remember he said something like "But, why are you ok?". That enfuriated me. I thought "What do you expect me to do? To stay in bed all day crying?". I was so angry with that stupid, STUPID man in that moment. 

I was scared. I became doubtful of myself in every way. But I couldn't grieve.

 Last year, my granny died. His mother. We really had an incredible relationship. She was so fantastic, she was witty, she was soo clever, she was really something. And i loved her so much and she left, with another part of my dad in her.

I would be so angry at her, in silence, when, after two or three hours of talking, she would bring up my dad. She talked about what had happened to him. And I just couldn't listen. I hated that moment, I hated it. I didn't want to listen to that. I nodded or said two or three words. But it was the most natural thing for her. She needed to talk about her having to bury her son, her kid.

So yeah, last year was difficult. So I started theraphy with a very, very good professional. But I started having this huge headaches. They wouldn't go away with some pain killers. I had so much hurt in me.

With therapy, this opened up. I opened up. I now I feel so crappy, I feel so sad. I feel I could never stop vomiting this sadness of mine.

But I know that's what my body needs. I need to feel this. This pain, saved, made me small, fearful, made my body put out an alarm that yells: don't do this to yourself. An alarm I wish my dad could hear earlier in his life.

Now I barely can do stuff. I'm about to graduate but I've put my degree on hold. I've put everything on hold. 

It's so difficult for my family, friends and boyfriend to support me. I know how it feels to see a person you love crying. It feels like you could break all the fucking windows in the world.

But, although it's hard for me to show my sadness, to cry in front of people, I must learn. This is me, and all of this is because of love.

I love my dad.

I miss him so much.

I think he would be proud that I'm brave to show everyone that I'm sad because I loved him, and he is a huge part of me.

I know this is a lot for you to read. It really helped me to write this.

As reading this forum really helped me, maybe I, too, can contribute to it, and help someone on his or her grief, because I think that talking or writing about it is key to liberating those feelings, and finding relief.

We shouldn't carry burdens of sadness because it's not ok for this society to be "weak" and cry. It's an emotion, like being happy. It shouldn't have a tag on it. It's not good or bad. It's an emotion and it NEEDS to get out of our bodies.

As I write this final words, I feel so much lighter. I have a very long road ahead of me in this grief. It's just barely started. But I know that, sharing it and getting it out, I'll find relief.

Thank you all SO MUCH.

 

Sol.

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Human Qrystal

Ooh geez. That must have been very hard. I can't imagine how difficult you and especially your dad went through. I hope all is well with you :(

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Dear owly eye,

I'm very sorry for your loss and how painful it has been these past 8 yrs.

I wanted to say how brave you are to have written your story because it must have been very painful to write it all out, the details your feelings.  I could not do it.  My mother died almost a year ago and I could not write the whole story leading up to her death and after.  It is still too painful.

I read your words.  You did the best you could to stay sane and not have a break down.  I can see that.  When you talk about forgetting stuff, its because of the shock.  Shock and depression makes you lose your memory.  It sounds like you may have post traumatic stress because you covered it all up for so many years, which I know why you did that, you did it to cope, to get through otherwise it would have been too hard to survive.  I understand.  Yes the emotion needs to come out and telling your story helps.  Sharing it with others who know what the grief process is like helps.  You are right, the sadness and emotion is there because you loved him so much.  I am very glad you have taken the brave step to begin therapy.  

I started therapy 2 weeks ago because after almost a year after my mother dying, things were getting worse.  Deep depression, avoiding everything, lots of coping mechanisms and not having a support system around me so I could talk.  I also suffer flash backs to the time before my mother died due to a very difficult family situation.  I still have them. In fact talking about them makes me relive them and I feel shaky and they spin around in my head like a movie.  I know though the only way to move forward is to talk about it all so I can begin to release them.

I very much hope in time you will begin to feel better and more able to cope.  Use this forum.  it helps me to read other peoples stories as it makes me feel less alone as others are going through the same.  We can support each other.  Wishing you all the best and I'm sorry for the painful loss of your father.

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