Member-only story
Every Mourning
I remember being asked to write my dad’s obituary, a man who I only really knew in 2 contexts — invincible because of how hard he worked and everything he accomplished despite overwhelming challenges and defeated as illness consumed him. Yet, I, his youngest, was on a deadline to write up something to encapsulate a man I barely knew except in the last half of his life. So I did, as well as helping with his cremation and going home service.
Then I hopped on a plane, went back to work, and was reprimanded and written up for being too sad in the office. I still had to figure out meal prep for the week. I was expected to get costumes together for dragoncon. I was in the weight watchers cult and my exercise buddy was riding my ass for not pushing myself as hard as I had been, never understanding that I was pushing myself because my father was dying and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Almost everyone demanded I be “normal” and I was trying to figure out how to live with this void that I could physically feel every moment of every day and all I wanted was for everything to fucking stop and give me a chance to learn to breathe again. To acclimate to the pain of that loss that I could barely understand, much less function living with.
I stopped talking to a lot of people during that time. I did the bare minimum and planned for the fallout of that. It helped me make space in my life for people who could sit with me as I was and let me…
