Day 23

Originally written for writing your grief course done by Refugeingrief in October 2022

Day 23

Today marks 10 years and 7 months exactly since my dad’s physical death that  is 3,866 days ( i looked it up on one of those one online how long ago sites.) That is how long ago I  started my grief journey as a suicide loss survivor . Although my emotional grief journey in regards to dad started in 2008 when his life started to spiraling out of control. In a lot of ways his life trajectory was set into motion well before I came to my dad’s life. Being born into a dysfunctional family and later being diagnosed as bipolar in his 20s . I was told later my dad’s Iq was borderline which I don’t doubt made it harder for him to navigate the world.  

I  will have to think how he would have loved me as his authentic self. As some of his behaviors when he were shitty when he was living. Believe me it is not a good feeling to know you have to emotionally protect yourself from your own father.

I imagine he would tell me he was sorry for all the emotional pain he caused mom and i. He would tell me he loved me and he doesn’t hold it against me for at times getting angry with him for some of the things he did while he was living as well as  circumstances of his violent death as it is a lot to live with. He would tell me he was sorry that his side of the family treated me so horribly before and after his death. I would hope if he were alive and emotionally well he stand up to them. Particularly when it came to my cousin Chanel 18 months after dad left she started harassing us. It took 2 months and installing a camera before we figured out it was her doing it. Given  that one of the things she did was put a garden gnome with the arm sawed  off on our doorstep obviously taking shots at me because i am a  congenital amputee above the elbow on my right side as well as putting an ad for my power chair on Craigslist: with mom’s number on it  so mom got a lot of calls . Fortunately it was not stolen. It was clear i was the primary target of her harassment over those two months there was more to it than those two incidents but basically that is a shortened version of what happened. At the time mom told me I needed to contact my dad to let him know what was happening.

   I did so reluctantly , he replied to my email saying, “just ignore her and she will stop.”  So I imagine he would address that situation better by giving me a hug and telling me that wasn’t ok and he was sorry that happened to me. He would  tell me not to be so hard on myself and to be kinder  myself more often and that he is proud of the woman I have become. He would tell me he loves me very me much and he was always look out for me.