{Holidays, 2008}
This Father’s Day, I’ll be spending the day at my dad’s gravesite.
It’ll be two years this August since my father passed away. I thought the wounds would heal by now. But they haven’t. Instead, it feels like the scar tissue is healing all wrong.
The first year was a blur. Days dissolving into one another, melting like the clock in one of my father’s favorite Dali paintings. Days spent focused on checking off items on a to-do list. Months spent trying to carve out some sort of a routine in a half-empty house.
Time heals all wounds; you hear that all the time. But I don’t think that’s true. Time tears off the Band-Aid, little by little, instead of ripping it off in one fell swoop. As the days, weeks, months and years go by, you just get caught up in routine.
Time doesn’t heal. You just stop seeing that person in your everyday. The image of your father walking through the door, in his purplish scrubs, holding his lunch box, smiling with his whole face like he always did—tired but happy to be home, starts to fade.
The image of him sitting at the dinner table, praising your mom’s cooking, over time, evaporates. You no longer hear him recounting how your annoying brother, Charlie, sleeps on his head and purrs non-stop, waking him up throughout the night. You no longer smell his cologne permeating the house — a strong smell, too, since his faulty sinuses blunted his sense of smell. You no longer remember the sound of his laugh or his voice. You try hard to concentrate, to quiet your thoughts so you can hear it, but it’s gone. You no longer shop for him. You no longer get home and show off what you bought that day shopping with your mom, while he actually pays attention and even comments — all the while you know that most men couldn’t care less. You no longer watch him spring from the couch watching his all-time favorite team Manchester United. You no longer listen to him talk breathlessly about how they did that day or his dream trip to catch a game in England.
These images once at the forefront of your mind become distant signs that you pass on a carless road, miles and miles away, forgotten figments of a trip long ago.
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One of the greatest things I ever did without really realizing how much I would later cherish it was when I sat down with my Dad and tape recorded him telling me about his childhood memories, his favorite things and just trivia. He has been gone 12 years and it is wonderful to bring out the tape and just hear his voice. I did not realize I would lose him so soon, and I am so glad I had the intuition to make that tape.
Sorry for your loss. I lost my father almost 9 years ago right before my 21st birthday. The only thing I can offer is this: while you will never stop missing and loving him, the “sting” of the loss does soften with time. I promise you.
Thank you for putting your feelings to words so beautifully. While I have not yet physically lost a parent, I am passing your article along to some people I know who have, as I know they will appreciate what you’ve written here.
I never knew my father (due to divorce), and met him when I was 33, so Father’s Day has no meaning to me. I am 64.
I never thought much about it and my mother never talked about him (didn’t even know his age)…like when you feel out forms i school.
I wrote a poem, called The Fatherless Child and realized it impacted me more than I knew….of course, on a subconscious level.
I don’t feel I missed anything but according to my friend (therapist)…..I did.
I will never know, though.
This will be my first father’s day without my dad, i lost him in january. I’m not really sure how to feel because I have children of my own and I dont want them to see me sad. I’m only 27 and they are 4 and 6. But I lost my best friend and dad, an I just miss him so much.
I am now a veteran of many Father’s Day without my beloved Dad. I can tell you that it does indeed get easier. I lost him pretty young – he was only 57. But it has been 16 years now…. and while every Father’s Day and birthday of his makes me sad, it is easier. I have lived so many things since he left – even suddenly losing my Mom a few years after him.
I pray to them. I still love them. And I will always miss them.
But I have done many amazing things with my life since they left and I know they were standing beside me through it all.
I like to spend Father’s Day thinking about home great my Dad was, and how lucky I was to have him as long as I did. It beats getting bitter and feeling cheated. (Which i do sometimes) But we will all meet again someday in Paradise.
God bless you all and please know it does get easier.
I’m sorry for your loss. January 2011 was two years that I lost my dad. And April was four years that I lost my mom. They were both young (62 & 57) when they died. It’s hard, especially on birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries.
The hardest part is my young son. Thinking about all the things he’ll miss with my parents makes it so much harder. Like you, I cry less now, but some days it hits me like a brick for no apparent reason.
I know the pain will lessen, and I will always have my memories and photos, but there will always be a hole in my heart that will never heal.
It was also my first Father’s Day without my father. He passed away in December from lung cancer.
Last Father’s Day, I spent in the ICU. It was that weekend he was diagnosed.
He was fifty-three when I was born. I was his first biological child after raising five other children as his own. The hardest part is knowing that no one will ever love me as much as he did. I miss him very much.
i lost my dad many years ago, i always feel sad when is father’s say.
I am sorry for your loss Margarita. Losing a loved one is never easy, especially when it is the Rock of our lives that we lose.
Father’s Day is pretty stressful for individuals who do not have fathers due to death, separation, divorce, simple abandonment or estrangement. But one of the things I often tell my clients is that while they are experiencing pain and feelings of loneliness, they are also having an experience that will add character and tools that others may not have access to. For example, one of my former clients lost their father 2yrs ago and has been feeling abandoned. She has remained angry with her father for dying. Recently we had a discussion about the qualities and insights that she has gained as a result of her loss. She found that she has gained the most essential tools of life: compassion (compassion for others), love (from others who have come into her life to support her and the love that she can share with others), empathy (an ability to relate to others and comfort them in their pain), wisdom (because she realizes she must be strong without her father now), knowledge (because she has challenged herself to be what her father would want her to be), and spiritual understanding (something she gained while seeking meaning after her father’s death).
We talked about the benefits of these qualities and how they seem to add to our developing person, to our existence in the world. Somehow we are better off after pain. During the pain it is very, very hard to see the benefits. But after the pain and grief subsides, we can see how even the loss of a father (through whatever means) can add the character we need to be everything he would have wanted us to ultimately be.
No words for this …. the most touching blog I have ever read …… i know this coz I have lived each and every moment of time.
It’s been more than a year I lost my Dad, the memories of him sitting and chatting for hours, the fun in watching family shows together, fearing his likes and dislikes before talking to any male friend have all started fading eventually but the fact that I have lost the most precious and beautiful relation in life takes its toll on me more and more with each passing day. The memories are gone but the one month struggle for his life in
ICU gets more stubbornly embossed in the nerves.
The fact of being a fatherless child kills you not only on father’s day but each and every day. You tend to seek a fatherly figure in various people around you, only to realize it was just your father
one who had the same features as you, who thought of you every single moment of life since the day you were born, thinking how to do everything capable for you before handing you over as a part of someone else’s life, your marriage was the biggest and ultimate goal of his life, all this cannot be found again in any other person.
There will be “n” no of relatives who may sympathize with you, get you whatever you want, take good care, do all tasks for you, in fact, do everything your father could have; but you will always remain someone else’s daughter to them. They may pay your fees but will not scold you for getting bad grades, they can pick you up from the school but will not decide for you if you should continue going to the school, they will get you all the presents you may not even require but will not place that fatherly hand over your head. It gets so tough at times to explain that all the material things, the petty struggles are something we can do; what we actually need is someone to just think of us as their child, think of how our exam would have gone, ask us if we are fine.
Losing a dad at a young age, especially when you are not even prepared that something this cruel can happen to you plays the most shattering effect on life. One may continue living the life but the motivation is gone. You know there will be noone at the backstage, feeling proud over what you have transformed into.
Life gets handicapped at such a loss but it needs t o be taken as a challenge, to complete his half accomplished tasks, to ensure that the values of love and care he taught all lifelong don’t just get lost.