Thoughts & Things

Grief, Again

After an unexpected month in the hospital, my dad passed away this week. The funeral is over with. I can move on with my life now. But can I? Earlier this year (late May), we also lost my grandma (my dad's mum). I am still grieving for the loss of my grandma, and I can't imagine that going away any time soon. Now I don't have my dad either. To say this has been a rough year for me personally would be an understatement.

I miss my dad. When I was a little girl, we were very close, and I adored him. When I was twelve, he went to Afghanistan, and he wasn't the same dad after. My teenage years with him were incredibly painful, and I think there was a lot of regret on my side and on his. Now that I am in my twenties, we have had a much easier relationship. It's not the relationship of my childhood, but it has been comfortable. (As a side note, my mum practically shared custody with my grandma all through my teenage years because after my parents split my dad wasn't really around, which is part of what made losing her so hard).

I am glad that my dad and I have been closer over the last few years, and especially the last few months. I am hurting for him that his last few weeks were so hard. He went into the hospital for abdominal pain and a fever, and ended up needing surgery for an intestinal perforation (a hole through his intestine). When they opened him up, they found that he had severe infection, a tumour the size of a cantaloupe in his colon, and smaller tumours in his liver. They couldn't even close him right away due to swelling, and his surgical incision remained open for over a week following the initial surgery. He had four surgeries total. He began to have complications that caused kidney failure and breathing trouble. Initially we had hope for years. Then months. The complications took him from us in less than a month from the time he entered the hospital.

At this point, I think we are all still processing. Grief has led to poor actions on the part of many, which has left me feeling a bit rejected by much family, particularly by my dad's wife and his sister. We are all just trying not to fall apart.

I am remembering many things, especially from my childhood, very fondly. I inherited photo albums from my grandmother, so I found some lovely photos of myself as an infant and as a toddler with my dad. I remember watching cartoons with him. I remember the best foods he made. I remember going camping. I remember learning first aid (he was an instructor). I remember snorkeling over a ship wreck in Georgian Bay. I remember the post cards he would bring me or send me from all the places he went to with the military because he knew I collected them. I remember watching endless superhero stuff with him.

I don't know how to grieve for two people at once. I don't know how to grieve for one person. It hurts. For anyone wondering why I have neglected to update my blog recently, this is why. It's hard to know what to say when it hurts so much. I hope I can do more writing now though. I may have talked about cartoons and reading as medicine, but let's not neglect the quality medicine that writing offers us all here at WDC.