One year, ten months, ten days

I think I’m going to keep on declaring, every few months or years, that I’ve stepped into a new phase of grief after losing Dad. That I didn’t understand all the previous stages until now. I think I’m okay with this. 

Hope you don’t mind.

Someone was recently telling me about a distant mutual acquaintance, and how this woman’s husband had died suddenly last year. The friend admitted it had been especially sad because it had been so sudden. Then she said, motioning to me, “Well. You know.”

I nodded yes. I do know. But somehow…I think I meant it in the past tense: I once lost someone suddenly. It was a very painful, jarring experience.

Less than two years ago. I was lost in the haze of shock; nothing added up. Understanding what exactly had happened to me was like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle on the edge of a black hole. The bits that I did tentatively fit together—I am still me, I still have my family. I’m going to grad school—scattered, often as not. Teetering on the edge of the darkness, I told myself to just focus on getting the edges in line. Just wait ‘til you get to episode seven. I bet that’s gonna be even better than episode six. I lost some bits entirely, I think. I’ve forgotten much of what it was like in high school, and even college. I remember what happened, but I have a hard time recapturing how I felt at 17, or 20. Sometimes I struggle to connect with my old friends, who knew me before.

I’ll never stop missing Dad. I’ll always have painful memories to conjure on my worst days, if I’m feeling masochistic. (And sometimes, I am.) I’ll never stop half-hoping that he might come back. But I’ve said this before, and I still mean it: I don’t wish my life to have gone any differently. I am stronger. I have more empathy. I try to be more open, more loving. I think I am a bit wiser.  

I see that day as a defining moment in my life. A crease in the page.

Everything before.

But here’s the best part: everything after.