Since I was nine years old, I’ve carried what feels like the weight of my world on my shoulders every single day. My hero, my role model, and most importantly, my father passed away unexpectedly right before the holiday season, and it was the worst time of my life. Yet, I couldn’t tell you what I was feeling the first months following his death because I actually don’t remember anything. My Mom said that the night I found out I screamed, kicked, and tried to run away before escaping to my room, locking everyone out.
I remember approximately NONE of that.
I cried on the days of his birthday and on the important milestones he was missing, but I still had this belief somewhere inside of me that he would come home one day. The pain of not getting to say goodbye was what hurt the most because I was his daughter, his only child, and the funeral was done with his family on the East Coast without one phone call to my Mom to tell her. We found out when my mom called in March to plan the spring funeral we had all previously agreed on. Instead we were completely and utterly blindsided and left with no closure. We had no choice but to move on with the rest of the world.
It was almost as if he was there one day but when I woke up the following morning, everything was different and the same all at once.
As the days turned into years, I was realizing I barely remembered that I once even had a father who was once the center of my life. Children don’t usually remember the first five years or so of their life which means I had about four short years of memories, and many of them were ruined from trauma. I almost have nothing. How could I forget him? What was wrong with me?
I’ve grown up with the shocked faces of new friends finding out that I don’t have a father, which is often by accident when it slips up in conversation. I’ve grown up with the worried faces when I just shrug and say it was a long time ago. I’ve grown up with the awkward faces when someone just doesn’t know what to say because it’s never happened to them, and I pray it never does. I’ve grown up with ALL of it to the point that in elementary school, I felt so isolated from the rest of my classmates because they still had their childhood innocence and mine was ripped away before I turned ten years old. I saw the world in a darker light than the rest, and I was bitter and just plain angry all the time.
College is all about finding yourself and I’ve done that while grieving at the same time. In the beginning of freshman year I was so scared of what would happen when my new friends found out. I thought they’d be so uncomfortable that they would leave, just like Dad did, and I would be alone again. Instead, I found some of the greatest people I’ve ever met, who let me talk about him and share stories that I only know from it being a story told to me. The trauma of losing my dad has brought me to friendships that I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.
Last year, the anniversary of his death was harder than normal because the dates lined up exactly the same days of the week as it did the year he died. From Halloween to November 4th, I felt as though I was living it in a constant cycle over and over again. I kept telling myself, “you had ___ more days, and you didn’t even know. How could you not know? Do you even remember when he left on Halloween and that was the last time you’d ever see him? How did you not know what was coming?”
It felt as though a freight train of grief was on top of me for those days, and my friends were right there that entire time. They let me cry on their shoulders, yell about how it wasn’t fair, and let me recount what I remembered from the worst days of my life. Honestly, I’m not sure how I would’ve made it through that week without them.
I write this not only to share a piece of my own story, but to remind you that you’re not alone. Grief comes in waves, sometimes it feels like the weight of the world is on us and other times it comes for only a moment. The point is, if you’ve lost someone close to you, whether recently or years prior, talk about it with someone, please. Navigating college when grieving is one of the hardest things someone may ever have to do. You’re divided by planning your future and still hurting from what happened in the past. It’s this limbo of being stuck in the middle of a terrible cycle you can’t get out of. I know, because I’ve been there. I’m still there.
You never need to carry the weight of that loss by yourself because not only did you not deserve to have this happen to you, but sometimes we just can’t do it ourselves. Everyone deals with grief differently, and I’ve found the best way for me is sharing my Dad with my friends who never got to meet him. If I can’t talk about it out loud, I write it. I’ve filled countless journals of everything from writing what I remember to just tearing out pages and ripping them apart in anger. Yes, it gets easier as time goes on but it never goes away. I wish I could say it does, but it doesn’t. If anything, I’ve learned that there’s this unspoken bond between kids who lost their parents. I met a few when growing up, and we just knew. It was a secret club that we wanted no one to have to join.
Grief is something we learn to live with and not everyone has the same weight on their shoulders that we do. But please, don’t go through it alone. You don’t have to. I promise.