Grief… a little down the track

I’ve been wondering lately about the absence of emotion around the loss of my father (it’s been 2 years – what the?) I think about him and remember, but the raw emotion feels distant. It’s kind of annoying and perplexing because c’mon he was my father and I wanna feel sad, feel something! But you can’t force what’s not there. Without the feels it’s a bit like he never existed 😦

Anyway, I was driving to an appt today, listening to the radio. I switch to the abc & it’s a program on death & dying and she’s talking about our role as a ‘witness’ when we’re with someone who’s dying. And oh, how quickly the tears come. I think about my poor dad in his last weeks. I wasn’t with him when he died but was with him as he was dying. She talks about dying being the most solitary thing we will ever do. And the tears come. Momentarily, I think about moving away from it because I’m going to an appt. Don’t want to have red blotchy face etc. but then I think of this as an opportunity and I don’t want to miss it coz who knows when it might come again, considering the disconnect of late.

So, I was happy. The grief hadn’t left me. I wanted to cry, yes! it was there. Finally. I had 10 mins or so to let loose. So I did, I cried. I cried out for him. The windows were dark so some level of privacy. It felt good. I got to the appt and wrote this down on my phone while I waited.

It reminds me of songwriting, how after a song is written & finished and there’s that gap before the next thing starts where I often think – will I ever get another song idea again, ever? What if I don’t? like that’s it now. No more music. And where will it come from? and how? And then of course it always does come. Somehow. And on it goes. So similar, thinking will I cry again for my father, or is the grief over? Thankfully, not.

And that’s the mystery eh? The unpredictableness. Of music, of creativity, of life, and of death, of grief. We think we know and we don’t. You just don’t know when it’s going to come but then it does. I like this quote by Rainer Maria Rilke, ‘Things are not all as graspable and sayable as on the whole we are led to believe; most events are unsayable, occur in a space that no word has ever penetrated’. Yep.

So, my grief came again and I felt close to my dad in that moment. I could cry for him and it felt real and I know again about love and my heart is alive and that’s good.

Take the opportunities when they come, it’s important. Because it might be dry for awhile.

x