Finding HopeFather’s Day Without A Father
Posted on June 21, 2020
I’ve made multiple attempts and spent a lot of time trying to write about my Dad – how he died when I was thirteen and how overwhelming the grief still is twelve years later – but I’ve never been able to post anything. However I approach it, I always end up finding it too painful to finish and end up abandoning it.
In my experience, Father’s Day (and any day connected to my Dad) usually feels very heavy and emotional. It just makes me feel so acutely aware of his absence, even more so than usual. But despite this, I’ve finally reached a place where I also want to remember and celebrate him on these days.
I don’t know about you but I’ve often felt that our culture is constantly trying to simplify our emotions, telling us that we can only feel one thing at once. But that’s just not true. As human beings, we’re inherently complicated and so are our emotions. We can feel more than one at a time, even conflicting ones. So if you want to celebrate your father on Father’s Day despite how sad the day makes you feel, that’s okay to do. All that matters is finding a way to remember him and feel connected to him in a way that feels personal and special.
There’s no rush though. You don’t have to do this now. You don’t have to do this ever if you don’t want to. Grief is such a different experience for everyone and there’s nothing that says you have to process it in a specific way. There’s nothing that says you have to do anything that you’re not comfortable doing. But if you do want to celebrate Father’s Day, then here are some ideas that you might like to think about…
- Look at photos – It’s scary to feel that our memories aren’t objective, that they change shape or fade over time, so looking at photos is a really good way of solidifying your memories of your Dad. For some people, it can be painful to have photos around all of the time but sometimes it’s good to just take a moment to flick through them and just remember.
- Talk to or spend time with family – We all have our own relationships and memories with a person and it can be really cathartic to simply sit and share some of that together. But if it feels too hard to talk about him, then just arranging to be together on a difficult day can be good for everyone. These emotions are so big and complicated that talking about them can be overwhelming but just knowing that you’re all feeling them can be comforting and strengthening.
- Do something he liked – I’ve always found a good way to feel connected to my Dad is to engage in things he liked or things we liked to do together. Not only does it remind me of good times with him, it makes me feel like I’m continuing his legacy. For example, we’d go swimming or draw or watch superhero stuff together so doing  one or some of these things can be really good for my soul.
- Do something that reminds you of him – Even if it wasn’t something you did regularly or something you actually did together at all, if it reminds you of him, that’s all that matters. It’s the connection that’s important, not where you find it.
- Write him a card or a letter – Sometimes saying the words out loud can be really hard. Too hard. Putting them down on paper or in a word document instead is a perfectly good alternative. And if writing directly to him brings you more comfort than just writing about him, then all the better. As I’ve already said, it’s the connection that matters, not where you get the connection from.
- Buy flowers – Simply having flowers around can be a gentle reminder of the day, of your Dad, without being too obtrusive or upsetting. It’s just a little something to differentiate the day from others if that’s what you want to do.
- Visit his grave or a place dedicated to him* – If there’s a place that makes you feel closer to your Dad, you might want to visit. You can take flowers, you can talk, or you can simply sit and think about him. Whatever you believe in, there’s a way to feel close to him. It may just take some experimenting to find the way that’s best for you.
- Make a toast or take a moment to think of him – Dedicating a moment to your Dad can feel really important but sometimes making a specific moment can be too much. You raise a glass or spend a minute thinking of him; both are just as good as the other. It’s whatever makes you feel comfortable, whatever creates a positive moment, that’s important.
- Create a memory box/scrapbook/photo album – Having a specific activity or task to complete on a difficult day can be a really positive experience and if that is something that makes you feel close to your Dad then that can be really healing. Having all of your memories of him in one place can be really comforting because it’s like storing all of those important moments in a safe place. You don’t have to actively carry them. They’re safe to tuck away for when you want or need them.
- Share something about him with someone who didn’t know him – Sometimes it  can be a lot of pressure to talk about your loss with another person who also went through that devastating experience because you’re both bringing in some incredibly powerful emotions so talking to someone who didn’t know him can be much easier. It can also feel good to know that one more person in the world knows about him, that he’s being remembered by more people rather than less: the loss of a loved, important person is a hugely personal thing and I know that every time someone has shared something that emotional with me, I’ve held that lost loved one close and vowed never to forget them because what a disservice that would be to them and the person who had shared their story with me.
*Not advisable during lockdown.
As I said, there are no rules that say you have to do any of these things – this year, next year, or ever. Even having made the list, I’m not sure I’ll feel up to doing any of them. We’ll have wait and see.
I hope this list has been helpful. And I hope that, if Father’s Day is a difficult day for you, you allow yourself to feel whatever you feel and do whatever you need to do to get through it. I’ll be thinking of you.
If you do anything not included on this list that you think might be helpful to others, please let me know in the comments…
Quotes That Helped Me (Grief Edition)
Posted on May 16, 2020
I’ve spent the past several weeks trying to write a post for today, about coping with a grief anniversary, about whether you can turn the day into a positive experience. I thought that talking about grief in a more objective capacity would make it easier to write about my own grief. I tried and tried and tried, intent on completing my plan, and it wasn’t until I actually considered the idea that I didn’t HAVE to do it – actually considered that it might be too difficult emotionally, especially with all the emotions surrounding the pandemic – that I realised how hard I was finding it. So, after a lot of thought, I decided to defer the post. I can always finish it for next year. But that left me emotionally depleted without a post for today.
After finding it so difficult and upsetting to put my own experiences into words, I found myself thinking about quotes, about how other people have put their grief into words. I’ve always found quotes to be a good way to make sense of what I’m feeling, especially the really complex emotions – and I think we can all agree that grief is one of the most complicated emotions a person can feel – so I’ve made a list of quotes that I have found helpful in describing my various experiences of grief. Of course, grieving is an ever changing state of being and it’s not linear or logical, just as these quotes prove, so hopefully everyone will find something in here that makes sense to them.
“Nothing on earth can make up for the loss of one who has loved you.” – Selma Lagerlöf
“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“The dead aren’t the only ones who vanish: you, too, can disappear in plain sight if enough is taken from you. I was still missing, in many ways. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to be found.” –Â Sarah Dessen
“My sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever. It doesn’t go away; it becomes a part of you, step for step, breath for breath. I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her.” – Jandy Nelson
“Sometimes you have to accept the fact that certain things will never go back to how they used to be.” – Unknown
“Grief is like glitter; no matter how much you try and tidy it up you’re never going to get rid of it all. You’re always going to find bits of it.” – George Shelley
“When someone you love dies, and you’re not expecting it, you don’t lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time — the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes — when there’s a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she’s gone, forever — there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.” – John Irving
“You were unsure which pain is worse — the shock of what happened or the ache for what never will.” – Unknown
“If you suppress grief too much, it can well redouble.” – Moliere
“Look closely and you will see
Almost everyone carrying bags
Of cement on their shoulders
That’s why it takes courage
To get out of bed in the morning
And climb into the day.” – Edward Hirsch
“‘You’ll get over it…’ It’s the clichĂ©s that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don’t get over it because ‘it’ is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no-one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?” – Jeanette Winterson
“It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.” –Â Lemony Snicket
“There is not a reason for everything. Not every loss can be transformed into something useful. Things happen that do not have a silver lining.” –Â Megan Devine
“Grief lasts longer than sympathy, which is one of the tragedies of the grieving.” –Â Elizabeth McCracken
“Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.” –Â Megan Devine
“When you lose someone very close to you, someone who makes up this essential part of your history and your future, your worldview shifts dramatically. You have a palpable feeling that everything and anything good can disappear at any time. I missed my dad a lot. I also felt like everyone I knew was going to start dying. I also hated that my dad wasn’t able to go on living. I wanted him to be alive; I wanted him to feel rain on his face, to eat a great meal, to read something funny, for HIS sake.” – Heather Havrilesky
“Grief is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” – Jamie Anderson
“Tell your friend that in his death, a part of you dies and goes with him. Wherever he goes, you also go. He will not be alone.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying, thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it — you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well.” – Richard Siken
“You can not die of grief, though it feels as if you can. A heart does not actually break, though sometimes your chest aches as if it is breaking. Grief dims with time. It is the way of things. There comes a day when you smile again, and you feel like a traitor. How dare I feel happy. How dare I be glad in a world where my father is no more. And then you cry fresh tears, because you do not miss him as much as you once did, and giving up your grief is another kind of death.” –Â Laurell K. Hamilton
“A reminder to remember: just because the sharpness of the sadness has faded does not mean that it was not, once, terrible. It means only that time and space, creatures of infinite girth and tenderness, have stepped between the two of you, and they are keeping you safe as they were once unable to.” –Â Carmen Maria Machado
“Until now I had been able only to grieve, not mourn. Grief was passive. Grief happened. Mourning, the act of dealing with grief, required attention.” –Â Joan Didion
“Life seems sometimes like nothing more than a series of losses, from beginning to end. That’s the given. How you respond to those losses, what you make of what’s left, that’s the part you have to make up as you go.” –Â Katharine Weber
“You never really stop missing someone – you just learn to live around the huge, gaping hole of their absence.” – Alyson Noel
“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” – Kenji Miyazawa
“We acquire the strength we have overcome.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The healing power of even the most microscopic exchange with someone who knows in a flash precisely what you’re talking about because she experienced that thing too cannot be overestimated.” – Cheryl Strayed
“When you meet someone who’s experienced loss as you have, there’s an unspoken understanding. Grief and tragedy are blood lines that turn strangers into kin.” – Unknown
So I hope this has been helpful, that at least one of these have perhaps made your emotions a little clearer for you. If you have any quotes that have helped you process grief, please comment and let me know. Quotes mean so much to me and are so helpful to me so I’m always on the look out for new, maybe even better ways to explain what I’m feeling when I’m unable to do it myself.
Finding Hope 