My grief led me to this place of memories. Early on I landed upon a place of darkness, confusion, and honestly no way of working myself out of the rut. Have you ever experienced a continuous streak of what some people would identify as bad luck? Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it bad luck, but there were definitely some moments in my life over the last six years that have strengthened my faith in order to deal with the level of grief that ushered its way into my life.
Within the blink of an eye it seems that my father was gone. The cancer battle that he was internally fighting began to spread rapidly, and there was nothing that could be done. Honestly, all we could do was pray. I appeared strong through his final hours, but I can remember having a similar response of the character Lance from the movie “Best Man Holiday” when Mia’s casket was lowered into the ground. I broke down with my sister outside of his room one morning because I didn’t want him to know that I was having a rough time letting him go.
I selfishly wanted him to keep fighting. He told my sister during one conversation, “you can’t fix this.” He was right. That was between him and God. My father was there to help me get through a few traumatic experience in my life. I was crushed that I was not able to nurse him back to 100% as he had did for me three years prior, but I had to soon realize that there was nothing I could do. During our moments together I would try to ask him as much as I could about our family history. My family, similar to my picture is quite a mystery.
It took me two years to sort through all of my father’s things after he passed. I went through every picture, document, and learned so much about my family, my father, and ironically myself. We had more similarities than I thought.
There were family pictures in a bin, an old black book that had phone numbers and addresses of family members from across the country, my father’s medical history, and his military information. I found peace in going through his things for almost two months. I felt closer to him, and I found information that has unlocked the door to learning more about my family’s genealogy.
I understand that no one’s journey with grief is the same. I wanted to share a piece of my story today in order to give someone else hope. There are still days when I want to call him to just get on his nerves, or grab a bite to eat at a local diner. I know there is a peace after the storm.
thank you!