Lived Experience Forum

[Determined]

Hi Everyone

Feeling a little low today, today marks 12 years since my Dad passed away at 57 years old.
I am not wanting to complain, vent or seek sympathy here, I just want to talk about Dad, something I have not been able to do in a while.

Dad died 1 week after my first child was born, his first grandchild. While he did get to hold his grandson once or twice he was so unwell I’m not sure if he was aware or not. As I see my boys grow and learn and processing new experiences I can’t help contemplate how much Dad has missed and how much they are missing, he would have made an awesome pa.

Someone asked me recently if my dad and I were close, it made me sad that I could not immediately answer the question. I was very fortunate growing up to have a mum and a dad who loved me deeply and would do anything to provide for their children and often went without in order to provide for us so I am most thankful and fortunate for that.

So why was it so hard to answer, ‘were we close’?
While Dad loved me greatly (of this I have little doubt) he often was unable to express this and mostly I felt that nothing I did was good enough, no matter how hard I tried I could have done better.
I think that in reality we were close, I just craved a different level of closeness. (Does that make sense?)

After Dad died my life fell apart in so many ways (related and unrelated) partly because I never took the time to properly grieve, rather buried myself in work so I didn’t have to deal with my grief. One thing that makes this hard nowis a lack of closure as there is not a traditional memorial (ie in a cemetery) for Dad, mum has a memorial in her house. I don’t blame her for this, it just hasn’t helped me in the way of closure is all.

When my children were younger they used to ask about Dad a lot, unfortunately I was never able to answer their questions as it was too upsetting for me, after a while they stopped asking. Sometimes I find this harder. And even if they did ask I have buried everything soo deep I can’t find the answers anyway. Something I am contemplating as we have another baby who will grow and most likely wonder about his pop and want to ask questions.

Anyway, I just wanted to say I love my Dad and believe that he loved me and did the best he could to make me and all of my siblings feel loved.

[utopia]

@Determined. Beautiful honest words about your dad. Thank you for sharing.

[Fancy_Pants]

@Determined it definelty makes sense, and echoing utopia thank you for sharing your journey 

[getbetter]

Hello it is almost the first aniversary of my dads passing and it will be a sad time, him and I did not have a great relationship but we shared some interests and both have a mental illness, its only in the last 2 or 3 years that my illness has gotten very bad and I can now understand what he was going through and why he tried to ease it with alcohol, we are on this earth for such a short time, it is so frustrating and cruel how mental illness can make that time so difficult.

[Adge]

Determined,

Thanks for sharing - I can relate to so much of what you said.

I've just joined the forums.

March 20th was the first anniversary of my Dad's passing.

I cannot say that I've come to terms with his loss, as the past 12 months has seen so many stressful changes & adjustments, including work.

I've been asked many of the same questions that you mentioned, like was I close to my Dad.

It was complicated - in the last 18 months before Dad died, yes I was very close to him. For the several decades before that, it was conflicted.

Thanks for writing about it. This is a topic that is very close to me at the moment.

Adge