Grief doesn’t disappear with time. But we don’t have to carry it alone.
May 26, 2015 sucked.
There really isn’t a softer way for me to say it.
I was at work, about 45 minutes from home. I was a floor nurse in a rehab hospital at the time. It was close to the end of my shift, but as most nurses know, the “end of shift” rarely means you are actually done. I still had several hours of charting waiting on me.
Then my phone rang.
It was my mom asking if my daughter had plans after school that she didn’t know about, because she had not gotten off the bus.
My daughter was only in the third grade, so there weren’t exactly a lot of after-school plans she could have casually decided to partake in without someone knowing.
Her father and I were not together at the time, but somehow she was able to ride the same bus to either my house or his. So naturally, I thought maybe she had just forgotten what day it was and went to her dad’s house instead.
I called him.
She wasn’t there.
Her stepbrothers said she had not been on the bus either.
That is when panic hit.
I started calling friends. I let my supervisor know what was going on. I left work and started heading home to find my kid.
While I was doing all of that, my mom went to the school to make sure she wasn’t still there. The principal said she should have been on the bus, but he would check the gym one more time just to make sure she wasn’t in the after-school program.
She wasn’t on the roster.
She had not gone all year.
But there she was.
Playing.
Having the time of her life.
Completely unaware that half the adults in her life were losing their minds because nobody knew where she was.
My mom called me and told me she had been found. Of course, my first instinct was to start ripping into my daughter because she was not where she was supposed to be. My mom quickly reminded me that it wasn’t her fault. The teachers had sent her to the wrong place.
Everything calmed down.
I turned around and went back to work to finish my charting.
Once I was done, I headed home.
Later that evening, I was outside talking on the phone with a friend I had called earlier while looking for my daughter. I was filling her in and telling her what had happened.
Then my mom came outside and told me I needed to call my brother right away.
I called him.
And then I heard words I was not ready to hear.
“Dad was found dead. He had a heart attack.”
The coroner had found my brother’s number in my dad’s wallet.
Just like that, the day shifted again.
Earlier that afternoon, I thought I had lost my child.
That night, I found out I had lost my father.
My brother and I split up the phone calls. The phone tree no one ever wants to be part of. I called family. He made other calls. We told the people who needed to know.
I was in a daze.
It didn’t feel real.
I didn’t talk to my dad every day, but we had a relationship. He was still my dad. And suddenly, he was gone.
Today marks 11 years since he died, and I still remember exactly how I felt when my brother told me.
The next few days were numb. I moved through the things you have to do after someone dies. Cleaning out his home. Making memorial arrangements. Calling people. Answering questions. Functioning because you have to, even when your brain and your heart have not caught up yet.
Eleven years later, I still carry the grief.
My birthday usually falls around Father’s Day weekend, and I still miss him calling me to tell me happy birthday at the most inconvenient time possible.
I miss the parts of him that were annoying.
I miss the parts that were funny.
I miss the parts I didn’t even realize I would miss until they were gone.
That is one of the things grief does.
It sneaks into ordinary days.
It shows up in a birthday, a song, a smell, a random memory, or a moment when you would give almost anything to hear their voice one more time.
And no, I am not here to tell you that time heals all wounds.
Because honestly?
I don’t believe it does.
Time changes grief. It stretches it out. It gives us room to breathe again. It teaches us how to function with the loss. But it does not erase the love, and it does not magically remove the ache.
Some days are easier.
Some days still hurt like hell.
Some moments still knock the wind out of me.
But what has helped me is knowing I do not have to carry it alone.
I have friends, family, and my husband to lean on when I need a shoulder to cry on. I have people who will sit with me in the hard moments. I have people who can laugh with me when a fond memory comes up. I have people who remind me that grief is not something I have to perform perfectly or hide neatly away.
And that is what I want you to know today.
You do not have to carry yours alone either.
I will never pretend grief is easy. I will never tell you to just move on, get over it, or look on the bright side.
That kind of advice makes me want to throw something.
But I will tell you this:
There are people who can walk with you through the dark until you can see enough light to keep going.
Sometimes that person is a friend.
Sometimes it is family.
Sometimes it is a spouse.
Sometimes it is a stranger who understands your kind of pain better than the people closest to you.
Let them walk with you.
Let them hold a piece of it when it gets too heavy.
You are not weak because you still grieve.
You are human.
And you are not alone.
With hope and encouragement,
Dawn
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