Pretty Lynne Writes

CW: death

My dad died today. 

If it seems weird to you that I’d be writing a blog post, well, it is, a little. But writing has always been the way I process things, so I’m doing that now. 

My dad lived a long life and the last few years were not great for him. He was in pain, he was sick frequently and he had started to show some cognitive changes. He was often irritated and had totally lost whatever meagre filter he had. 

He became ill quickly and my mother was in the hospital and encouraged him to call an ambulance. By the time he got to the hospital, he was very sick. I was able to speak with him (well, I squeaked at him and then he told me to just listen and rest my voice), and I am very grateful to have been able to tell him that last time that I love him. 

It has only been in the last few years that my dad and I have said these words to each other. He was a man of very few emotional skills. He loved my mother to the ends of the earth and above all else, and I’m so glad she was there with him at the end. 

There’s an old Philip Larkin poem that starts with the line “They fuck you up, your mom and dad,” and in my case that really was true. I spent many years feeling like the lesser-loved child in my home, learning that it wasn’t safe to have feelings or express them, learning that to get attention I had to achieve. I’m not alone in that; if you’re a member of Gen X, you probably bear some of those scars too. 

There is something deeper, though; the way my dad related to me had a profound effect on the way I have related to men in general. It’s late in life, but I think I am learning that some of the beliefs I had about myself were actually never true. There’s a sense of mourning in that process. 

I did talk to my dad about a couple of those things over the last year, and we had some good conversations about how he had chosen to love me. The very act of speaking up to say some of those things was very healing for me. While my dad apologized for some and did not remember many, he listened to me. That was huge. 

Here is the truth: my dad did the best he could with the tools he had. I know that. 

Over the last year, I have been able to let a lot of my anger towards him go. I am so glad for that right now. I’m not in a position where things went unsaid or unheard. There is no unfinished business for us. 

I have learned that two things can be true at once. It is true that my father loved me and that he hurt me. It is true that I loved him and that I resented the fact that he wasn’t a better parent. It is true that his passing is the best thing for him and yet also feels unfair after all of the things he’s been through. It is true that I am okay and also incredibly sad to have lost my dad. 

I’m sure the full force of my grief about my dad’s death is still to come. Right now, things feel pretty surreal.

I think about that song that I mentioned early in the life of this blog: Change, by Big Thief

Death, like a door

To a place we’ve never been before

Everything changes. My dad has walked through a door to whatever comes next, and I’m walking through a different door, into a world where I can’t hear his stories about how much his tablemates at the retirement home annoy him, or the years he worked as a police officer, or hear him say “love you, kid.”

Love you, Dad.