Let It Out

On refusing to hide my grief.

I hardly know where to start.

So many wonderful people have reached out to me over the last 16 days since my dad passed away, offering condolences, sending flowers or food, and generally just alerting me to the fact that they are there for support. It’s lovely and I am grateful for every single one of you. But as we move past the initial shock, and the hours turn to days turn to weeks, and people gently ask me how I’m doing, I still don’t quite know how to respond. What can you say when I still can’t process that it’s not possible to pick up the phone to call my dad with a question, or send hiim my Wordle score, or a picture of my latest adventure abroad? It just doesn’t seem real. How could it?

That crazy thing is that even in the depths of my grief, I can still sense my people-pleasing tendencies emerging. I tend to soften my response when someone checks in about my current mental state. I can’t reveal too much I think. It will be too awkward for someone else to hold the truth of how I’m really feeling.

Peonies forever

We as a culture aren’t very good at dealing with grief, or death for that matter. They’re topics to be avoided in social settings, hidden from view so as to not make anyone uncomfortable. Part of me understands this—I’m not exactly chomping at the bit to attend a party and offer up the fun fact that my dad died a few weeks ago. There are other more enjoyable soundbites to share, even if grasping for them at the moment is rather difficult. But when it’s common knowledge amongst your peers that you’ve suffered a loss, and someone casually asks how are you doing, I’ll admit it feels like a disservice (to myself and to my father’s memory) to completely erase my grief and response with the standard okay or fine—because I’m not.