Grieving my Father's dead

I have been trying to write this post since my dad passed, but have been consumed by grief, a lack of creativity, and no desire to write.

Grief takes on many forms when you have chronic pain or a chronic illness, like fibromyalgia. You might be grieving the person you used to be, the life you used to have, or all of the things you used to be able to do.

Any loss can be profound and all-consuming. Even life-changing.

I lost my father a month ago and today was his birthday. My father had been in hospital care for 45 days, 30 days on ICU, so we knew the inevitable was coming. Knowing doesn’t make it any easier and the suffering for being so much bigger because I was miles away from him. I couldn't to visit him, say goodbye or even to be on his funeral and give the support to my mom.

I was in full-on flare mode.
Grief takes a toll on you physically as well as emotionally.

There are changes to your body that you won't understand. The brain fog, tiredness, aches and pains are exhausting. I think a lot of people expect you to be over it with a few weeks, or even a year and trying to carry on day to day is physically and mentally draining.

Being sad, in pain, and just plain tired takes energy. Sometimes grief is so overwhelming you don’t know if you can get out of bed, or even go on. The hardest thing to muster at that point, is HOPE and STRENGTH. But you must dig deep down and look for something to hold on to, that glimmer of hope and the will to move forward.

This too shall pass, I tell myself.

I still miss him every day. Much like finding my “new normal” with fibromyalgia, I'm not just grieving my father, I'm grieving a life. I am not just grieving losing my dad, I’m grieving the life I thought I was promised with him. I don’t get to see him closer from his grandchildren, even know I know he was been the best grandfather ever. I don’t get to call him up when I need advice, help or even to say "hi". I don’t get to share if I get a new job, or a promotion. I miss my dad and alongside that I miss being able to pick up the phone, pop round to see him, get his opinion or share a joke or a new song with him. You grieve everything that you should be doing with that person too and that means than everything good is filled with a tinge of sadness. To combat that I try and keep him included in it all and I know that somewhere out there, he knows it all and he is cheering me on.

It took a good month to feel human after his passing, and recover from that wicked flare. As expected, the loss is still there. I am comforted knowing he’s no longer in pain.

Time doesn't heal but you get better at dealing with your wounds, you get better at dealing with the pain. Your world around you becomes bigger and the pangs of grief are typically less frequent. The analogy people tend to use is that your grief is like a bouncing ball in a box that hits against the sides of the box, each time it hits a side you feel those grief pangs. The longer time goes on the bigger your box becomes and the frequency of those pangs is typically more spaced out. That doesn't mean that when they hit they are any easier and that some days your box will shrink straight back down and those pangs will feel more frequent again but you know that progress exists and even if it isn’t linear, you will be ok.