This is my family's first major holiday without my dad. I don't want to be sad anymore.
Thanksgiving is a day of gratitude and instead of focusing on sadness, I would rather recall the memories of Thanksgivings past when my dad was here. It has been three months since that awful day when we had to let go of my dad and I experienced the deep pain of grieving one of the most important persons in my life.
Not that my grieving process is over; I will feel this for the rest of my life. My grief has changed from a constant state of numbness and ever-flowing tears to a place where I can go out into the world and function. There have been so many lessons learned since saying goodbye.
I never realized just how much I would change from this loss. Almost instantly little messages came to me and I started to see things in a different way. I discovered that the only way for me to get through this process was to look inside of myself for answers that were always there but hidden. Divine intervention in the form of signs was waiting but I needed to open my eyes and my heart and listen for it.
During this process I also realized that I needed to get back to myself. I had been lost for a while, caught up in daily human dramas that threw me off of my path. Getting back into myself I could refocus on who I really was and who I needed to be. I thought about who my dad was and through my memories I was able to see him for the man he was and not just as my dad.
How he lived his life became a lesson to me. I began to hear his advice given to me over the years in a new light. Suddenly I understood what "don't sweat the small stuff" meant. I began to see what really was important and what really mattered.
Things my dad had said over the years actually helped me to accept his passing. I miss my dad but I have to be honest with myself. The last few years my dad's health was failing. There were things I wanted to say to him while we waited for a diagnosis when he was in the hospital. I didn't say things to him because his hearing was so poor that I would have had to shout for him to hear me and even then, he might not have understood what I was trying to say. There were many things the last few years that I wanted to discuss with him but because of his hearing I didn't. Especially when he was in the hospital it was difficult to attempt to speak intimately when there was little privacy to begin with.
My dad wasn't happy the last few years of his life here. His health was failing, he lost his job, he moved from the home he raised his family in and he felt the world had changed too much for his liking. I knew what my dad's beliefs were regarding what happens after death. I know that his beliefs were so strong and I needed to trust those beliefs.
So today as we celebrate Thanksgiving I am grateful. I have almost let go of all the sorrow ( I am closer than I was) and be grateful for having been blessed with a very special dad. I feel joyous for the adventure his soul is experiencing now and I look forward to being with him again when it is time. He hasn't left me and I know that. Love never dies.
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