My dear friend’s dad died in the summer & last week we had a deep cry together at a dinner party (oh how we both needed it!) She told me she constantly feels like she isn’t ‘doing’ grief properly. Here’s what I said to her [a thread for anyone who needs it] 👇
Try and let go of the guilt and expectations you’re carrying around for how you think you should feel right now, and how grieving for your dad should look. Give yourself a blank cheque.
Your whole being is in emotional turmoil. Survival mode has kicked in. Let it do its thing. There’s no right way to grieve and if you’re feeling ‘ok’ for one minute, hour, day, week, that’s ok.
Because the truth is, there’s going to be lots of minutes, hours, days, weeks, that you don’t feel ok. So grab those moments of lightness greedily when they come.
Don’t compare your grieving to others, ESPECIALLY those closest to you. Your grief will look different to your siblings because it *is* different, in the same way your love and relationship with your dad was different too.
You’ll carry your dad and his love with you every day and sometimes it will feel heavy and like it’s dragging you down. Other days it will feel like the wind on your back, lifting you up until you’re flying
Sometimes the fact of his death will make you feel bone-chillingly cold and empty, and sometimes the fact of his life will make you feel warm and fuzzy.
You’ll go on to have a bright and beautiful life, full of brightness and lightness and joy and beauty. But it will never be ‘ok’ that your dad died. Just like it won’t ever be ok my mum died. That, my friend, will always be shit.
We will miss them forever, of course. We will feel heartbroken that they're missing out on the big days in our lives - the weddings, the promotions, the births. But also on the quiet Thursday afternoons too, when we're washing the dishes and just fancy a chat.
So there’s no point in trying to pre-empt when grief will rear its head and wind you, because it's on its own timeline. But 13 years on from Mum dying, I promise it won’t always feel so gut-scoopingly, desperately awful as now.
But when it does, because sometimes it still will, try and surround yourself with cosiness. A cup of tea. A roaring fire. A soft blanket. A beloved pet. Happy photos. Bruce Springsteen.
