Progress Makes Perfect

As I grieve the loss of my dad, one challenge I've faced is the unpredictability of the grieving process. One minute I'm walking along in the sunshine, feeling great, and suddenly something unexpected will move me to tears. In the beginning, these surprises would feel like daggers through my heart. As time passes, I feel stronger and the grief is not as raw as it was initially. I think I've finally accepted that my dad isn't coming back (a downside to watching way too many soap operas in my life is the expectation that people really do rise from the dead. I guess that only happens when they are buried alive - ala Marlena in Days of Our Lives). I am still so sad and I miss him, but now when I see a picture of him, I am starting to feel more and more grateful for having had a dad worth missing instead of wanting to crawl back into bed for the day.

I have been frustrated along the way too. Anytime I felt like I was making "progress," these unanticipated pangs of grief felt like setbacks. Almost like I was failing at grief. A lot of people say that grief comes in waves and that makes sense to me too. Now that I've been at this for a while, the waves don't catch me off guard. I've also heard that the grieving process is like climbing a spiral staircase, as opposed to traveling a straight line. You move up a few steps, and you might fall down a few the next day, up and down you go. I've come to accept the spiral as I have the waves. At least I thought so.

My husband and I spent the afternoon with my mom at my parents' house. My dad had a lot of interests. And he had a collection to go with each one. Guitars, music, amps and so on for the musician in him, and he was a great musician. Woodcarving and sculpting tools for the artist in him. Hundreds of books to satisfy his appetite for learning. Tools and duct tape for the handyman and the list goes on. I think you get the picture. And now we have to figure out what to do with it all.

But here's the catch, every tool, big or small, each and every book, and just about every stitch of clothing was touched by him. Some of it was loved by him. Some threads worn thin by him. And while I feel fairly confident that our loved ones live on inside us and around us once they pass, the desperate ache to spend just one more minute with the physical being that once embodied that love who was my dad, is enough to break my heart. Again and again. So as I tried to help my mom pack some of my dad's clothes in a Rubbermaid tote today, I cried and cried. I wanted to wrap his corduroys around my neck like a scarf and curl up in the fetal position on the floor. The thought that his long, thin feet would never fill a warm woolly sock again was almost too much to bear.

It gets worse. It's not just losing my dad that makes this process so tricky, it's watching my mom experience the loss of her husband and my sister struggle with the loss of her dad (she is my baby sister after all), and, please pass the tissues, seeing my children trying to grasp the reality that their Papaw will never hold them on his lap again. They aren't even old enough to truly understand what they're missing. Ugh.

Here I sat a few days ago, thinking it was time to start sharing my story, or at least sorting it all out in a way that feels right to me, and I wonder, am I really ready for this? Waves, spirals, tears, all things considered, I guess I am. And that, for me, is true progress!