Today marks the first anniversary of the day that I lost my daddy. I was in a nursing home a thousand miles away with my husband as he recovered from an amputation. I didn't get to say good-bye to my daddy. He died alone. Mama and my sister were out shopping and called to check on him because he'd been sick. He had just recently been in the hospital. They didn't get an answer to their call, so they went home. There, they found him dead of an apparent heart attack.
This whole year I've felt so disconnected from things. It seems that everywhere I turn, something is focusing on the loss of a father. The play our daughters were in at the local college just weeks after my daddy's death nearly sent me to an asylum. I missed the first part of the play because the first few moments were so intense. The girl had lost her father and was feeling guilty about things. Ultimately, I got through it, but I left the theater bawling my eyes out. It was too hard and too soon.
When do the tears stop? Some things that I've read say that if you're still sad and crying two weeks later, then you need to go to the doctor, that something is wrong with you. How can that be? How can you spend your entire life loving someone, lose them, and then be completely over it with no emotions left in only two weeks time? I'm thinking, the relationship with my daddy started with my birth and my feelings about him will last until my death (and maybe beyond). Who are they to tell me that I'm nuts because I can't turn off love and heartache with the snap of their fingers?
I would love to hear your thoughts on "proper" time frames for grief and, if you've lost a parent or a significant person in your life, how you got to a point that you weren't in tears every time someone mentioned that parent.
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