September 8, 2014 - Evening

I have been doing some research on grieving the loss of a parent. I have some articles and other writings that I will be using to focus, reflect and grieve the loss of my Dad. This is one site that I am going to begin with here. Alexandra Kennedy is the author of 'Losing a Parent'. She has 10 steps in helping to grieve the loss. She says on her site:


"The death of a parent is a shattering experience, wounding us and flooding us with powerful forces. The boundaries of our world are torn away, and suddenly life seems bigger than we might have imagined, terrifyingly bigger. A parent's death can shatter us, leaving lifetime scars, or it can shatter our limits sense of our selves, opening up our world into new dimensions. For the latter to happen we must be willing to take a journey through grief, following what may often seem like a long, dark passage that will, in its own time, open out into vast new worlds."
From Losing a Parent by Alexandra Kennedy

THE first step is to:

ACKNOWLEDGE THE IMPORTANCE AND POWER OF THIS EVENT

I think that there is no denying the importance and the power that the dying of my Dad has on me. It is my first full day without my father and I have been nearly crippled with grief. I think dehydration is possible due to the amount of tears that I have cried. (and I am not a crier!). Acknowledging this is the first step to working through this process. This isn't always going to be easy or pretty. It needs to be done. I do believe that there are some valuable things that I am going to learn about because of this grief. 

The first thing that I think is going to evolve is finding out that there are other people in my life that love me unconditionally. That probably sounds weird. I did share in one post on here that my default under stress is to believe that "no body likes me". My father was never included in that. I knew, always that he loved me. Always. I know that there are other people who love me. As an adult I have learned how to deal with this "Auto" response when I am under stress. Mostly I can keep it contained and deal with situations appropriately, but on occasion I have trouble sorting it out. I think that working through this grief that I will be able to find greater success in this auto response keeping its head down and not having to deal with it as much. My father will continue to teach me lessons even after his death, through this grief. 

That is all great.....and I am in some ways looking forward to working through all of this.......In reality.....I still can't believe it is true. I can't believe that I will not see him again, hear his voice again, feel his hugs again.........so....as crippling as this seems today......how much more crippling is it going to be when I really know that it is real. Scary. And so this journey with my father begins.......