Grief never stops

I haven’t written about depression, suicide and dad’s death for a while (Previous posts include: He said everything will be better and The day mum threw all the plates in the kitchen). I haven’t needed it. Jamie and I have been travelling across Europe, Morocco and Turkey in our motorhome for the past 18 months. It’s been and still is a fantastic adventure. Happy and excited about our life, I didn't expect to feel sad. It was a short time, but it was such a shock that I felt compelled to put it in writing.

A few months back we were with some friends having dinner. We were having a wonderful evening; great home-made food, wine, chatter and banter until the wee hours of the morning! Yes, it did hurt when we woke up, whatever time that was... Hungover, we reminisced about the great fun we had until I, suddenly,broke into tears thinking about one significant moment. 

As the evening went on and the wine was flowing, our discussions went one way to another including fatherhood. Our friends had just become grandparents. Their only daughter had given birth recently to a little boy. Our friend’s wife, Suzanne said that that was it, Dave wouldn’t be the first man in his daughter’s life but, rather the third: First, her husband; Second, her son; Third, her dad (Dave). Dave told us how sad that was. It’d obviously hit him hard the first time when his daughter got married. This time around, she really had moved away from the nest and started her own family. A big event for any parent(s). I could sympathise and understand completely how hard it must be.

But, whether it was the affect of alcohol or something else, I felt this huge sadness mixed with envy  mounting. It was overwhelming. I wanted to yell and cry. Luckily it was all happening inside. My friends and Jamie didn’t know what was happening at all.

As I explained it all to Jamie, big tears kept rolling down my cheeks like a sobering child. I had wanted to be the daughter. I had wanted to have a mentally healthy dad who would feel the same when I’d have children. A dad who would have already felt second place after I married. A dad, not a godfather, who would have lead me down the field at our wedding. A dad who would have been proud of me. It was all mounting up. I couldn’t stop the tears. It was floods of them.

Poor Jamie, he just waited until it calmed down. It was too much. It felt like I couldn’t control this frenetic flow. It felt weird.  I am 35, crying like a toddler. I felt like I was too old to cry like this. Too old to have such feelings. It’s been enough years. Enough years to grieve, accept and be fine with not having had a dad for the most part of my life. It was scary as I hadn’t expected it at all. I had made peace with it all after having a much needed therapy before we went travelling. It had been a closure. 

These weren’t tears from depression though, just sadness. Grief never stops. Whether you’re 11, 25, 35, 60 or 80, it doesn’t stop. It evolves, expressing itself in different ways, in different situations. Hopefully, next time, I’ll be less scared and may be able to stop and breathe.

Putting the cart before the horse

I hadn't thought much about the consequences of opening up. It'd been nearly a year since therapy had finished and I was seeing my homeopath/counsellor regularly. I just wanted to share my story and may be help others along the way. 

Writing is one thing, but sharing it on an online platform and making it available to friends & family on social networks is another. It wasn't healing or therapeutic as one said on Facebook, far from it. It opened wounds again. I knew I had to press "pause" and come back to it when I'd be ready.

The day mum threw all the plates in the kitchen

I was 10. I came down to the kitchen to see what was happening. I don't remember what mum was saying, but she was angry. It all had become too much.

Dad was too quiet, he'd never been one to argue. I found him in the garage. He was crying. I wish I could now say I hugged him, but I didn't. I just stared in confusion and went back in. Mum was throwing all the plates in the kitchen.

Nathalie took me and Dom' outside. Our shelter was our metallic green Mazda 323F. She told me and Dom' that we needed to stay out of the way until things had calmed down. I was crying. We hugged for a while. Before we went back in, Nath told us to not upset mum further than she was.

Later on mum laughed that we didn't have any more plates to eat with. I couldn't stop thinking she'd made dad cry. It hurt.

He said everything will be better

1 April 1991. Around 8.20pm. Like any evening, we're watching The Cosby Show on M6 in our PJs. Something felt weird, like if we knew. The phone rings. Mum cries. It all happens fast, but almost in slow motion. Dad's finally done it. After several failed attempts, he took his own life. He jumped from the window of his fourth floor hospital bedroom.

The day before, dad had said to mum and my oldest sister, Nathalie that everything would be better, we'd start from scratch. Did he know then that he would do it? Did he know that our lives would change forever and, maybe, for the best? We will never know what he meant, but I'd like to discover what sort of man he was. 

I was 11 when dad died. He had been ill for more than four years. Mum said he started to change when I was four. At that point, he'd lost the job he'd loved in a laboratory. From then, it just went slowly downhill until he was institutionalised when I was seven. I wasn't allowed to go inside the clinic neither the hospital he was in through the four years which made it hard. It made it hard to comprehend what was happening. I think I was angry at times. My mind has tried to erase that time as much as possible from my memory, but bits come back from time to time.

Most of the times I'd wait for him to come outside, he'd be in his joggers, looking like a veg. It wasn't my dad. It was a semblance of him. For years, I blamed the institutions, the tablets, the family who didn't come to visit and didn't do anything. But who could?

Dad did want to be interned. He had asked mum to be institutionalised. He probably had realised that she couldn't cope with him and us (the three girls) and so needed some help from somebody external. Not an outgoing person, he became more and more reclusive. He'd read a lot. He became closer to God.