WHAT LOSING A PARENT AT A YOUNG AGE IS REALLY LIKE
People deal with death in different ways. Some people handle the grief rather well, while others let it eat them alive. Losing someone in your life is never easy, and when it comes to losing a parent at a young age, it becomes a tough subject to talk about. For me, May 29th, 2009 started off as any other day in my typical teenage life. I was a junior in high school stressing about normal 17 year old things. That day in particular, was our school talent show. I remember that night clapping loud and smiling proudly as my little sister won the whole thing. I got in my car with my friends and looked forward to a fun night out. If that’s how my night had ended, it would now have been a distant memory of any other Friday night in my high school years, becoming insignificant as time passed. Instead, it turned into the worst night of my life.
I’ll spare the details of my dad passing away that night, and sum it up with saying this: Yes, it can be relative, each and every person’s situation being different.. but it all comes down to the same thing: It sucks.
One of my biggest pet peeves I never knew I had until this happened to me was what people say when someone dies. The worst possible thing people can say when someone you love dies is “it gets easier”. I know some people can argue with me saying it does in fact get easier, but to me, I can’t justify this saying. I know in my situation- 6 years may seem miniscule to the number of years some people have had a parent been gone for. And I know that, I am not blind to say that I am the only one suffering this terrible loss.
I don’t want to write this and sound bitter—but I’d be lying to say that I didn’t feel bitter a lot of the time. People say death only takes away the person, and not the memories of that person. Which I guess technically is true, but unless someone has a vault I can personally keep my memories of my dad in, I am only human and even those memories can fade with time. It’s life and I get that. Sometimes I sit and try to remember certain things and can’t. Sometimes it takes time and effort just to remember his voice or something he would say. I guess looking back now I can put a chronological order to the way death has played a role in my life.
At first, my dad dying was obviously sad and tough to get through. I spent a lot of those first few months wondering what even was going on, and felt almost like real life was on hold. I had to chin up and obviously start my senior year of high school, and while the biggest stressor in my life should have been what college I was going to go to, I was instead miserable missing him. That year was without a doubt filled with little things that made me miss my dad the most, all the first holidays without him, getting used to not being able to call him or have my phone constantly ringing from his worried calls and voicemails about me, not having him drive down our street just to stop and talk, and mostly- not having a dad there who unconditionally loved me. You see, when you’re lucky enough to have parents who blindly love you for just being you, it’s taken for granted. You don’t know it’s even there until it’s suddenly missing. It was until right around the following 1 year anniversary of his death did I start to realize how tough getting over this was really going to be. During my high school graduation, while giving my class president speech in front of a huge crowd of people, did I realize what death really took away from me- my dad being there for every big moment in my life that was to come.When people talk about loved ones dying, it’s a tragedy no matter what the situation. Whether you are 17 like I was, 30, 50, or even 70.. I’d imagine losing a parent is terrible either way. I can specifically only talk about what it was like for me at 17 losing my 54 year old dad. It’s inevitable that big life events happened for me over the last 6 years. I am 23 now and many more events are still to come. I can name events in my past that I always felt something was “wrong”. I chalked up that empty pit feeling in my stomach to obviously just missing my dad, and I put a brave face on and enjoyed the moment. Since then, he hasn’t been here for my first day of college nor was he able to sit in the stands and watch me graduate from college this summer. He won’t be helping me weigh the pros and cons of the decisions for my post graduation life, or help me move into my first house. He won’t be here when I fall in love with Mr. Right and he won’t be the one walking me down the aisle as I marry him. He won’t get to hear me say the words: I’m pregnant and then listen to me complain for 9 months straight about how huge I am. He won’t get to see his grandson or granddaughter the day I give birth. He will miss out on all this and so much more.
But all that is looking into the future, and it saddens me to think of being excited for all of these things that will happen to me and knowing it’ll never 100% feel “right”.
Now I know this all sounds depressing and well quite frankly, it is.
Dealing with death isn’t just coming to terms with the fact that someone is gone and never coming back. It’s at 2 am when you can’t sleep because you are consumed with sadness. It’s that feeling of wondering what could have been, or what would have been in the future. It’s never having a single day in my life where I don’t think of my dad one time. It’s trying to still be an average 17 year old when you’re dealing with so much more. It’s searching in the wrong places to fill the void in your life. It’s trying to find love to replace his, then being devastated when you realize you can’t. It’s constantly looking for signs or something that tells you things will get better or that he’s still here. It’s honestly asking yourself : will this EVER get better? It is feeling like nothing will ever break your heart as bad as this.
Now I should clear one thing up here before anyone thinks that when you lose a parent young, that you are some damaged broken kid who can’t face the day ahead. It’s not always like that. I have a great family who means more to me than I can describe to you. I have the best mom in the whole world who would do absolutely anything for my siblings and I. I have amazing friends who I have grown up with and have turned into some of the most beautiful women I know, inside and out. I have people constantly surrounding me who make my days better and who love me for me. And if I need someone at 2 pm or 2 am, I know I have people in my life who I can call. It’s just that nobody can replace a parent’s love. A part of who I am isn’t here on Earth anymore. And that’s the craziest thing to wrap your head around. That I literally wouldn’t be sitting here right now typing that if it wasn’t for him and my mom.
Yes, Some days are better than others, and some days I do feel like I have worked past a lot of my issues of losing a parent when I was still so young. I know people grieve on their own time, I’ve read books and articles and blogs and everything in between. I’d be crazy if I really thought I was in the same sad place as I was 6 years ago with this. I’m not. I’m older and have learned so much about myself and who I am as a person. I have grew in many ways not just in the sense of becoming an adult. I am sure there will come a time when I am more at peace with him being gone. Like a lot of other things in life, this is something I can’t control. If given the chance, I would do just about anything to change the course of events and how this happened. I hate that this is my story and how events have unfolded. I hate feeling this way, because it’s almost selfish in a way. So many people have it way worse than me. I’m sure many people would change something in their life if they could. And maybe in 15 years I will feel different.. But for me, right now, May 29th, 2015 marked 6 years of my dad being gone and this is how I feel. So back to the saying of “It gets easier”… don’t believe that. Just believe that it doesn’t get easier, but you do get stronger. One day you will wake up and look in the mirror and pat yourself on the back for getting to where you are. There really is beauty in the breakdown, I have found so much meaning in that saying the last six years. And it’s that this process of losing my dad has taught me so much about myself, that who knows who I would be right now if life played out differently, and I can truly say who I am is pretty amazing
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