This weekend it will be two years since my father died. The anniversary of his death is such a strange time, with a horrible surreal feeling to it. Last year, I was doing 14 days quarantine interstate, which was a weird grieving experience. I spent the day weeding my in-laws garden and feeling slightly detached from everything. Two days before the actual date I was much more upset for some reason.
This year, with covid restrictions gone, my family is holding a memorial to mark the day and I’m actually dreading it.
For me, this is day I would prefer to spend alone or only with immediate family. However, for other members of my family, they want to grieve together and mark the day in a significant way. It’s certainly showed me the different ways that people process these things. If it was up to me I wouldn’t be contactable for the whole weekend, to allow space to be quiet, to cry and to talk about memories with only those very close to me.
I suppose it is always hard to balance the different ways of processing death. I just dread the similarity this event will have to the day of Dad’s funeral. I don’t want to relive that day, in any way. There’s still plenty of times when I get hit by intense flashbacks to the weird covid funeral, or the night I got the phone call or standing by his body in the empty church after the rosary. They’re such raw, breath-taking moments and I never know quite when one of them will pop up. I know they tend to happen when something reminds me of those moments. A phone ringing after 8:30pm will always get me. The image of Mary holding her Son’s dead body can do it. Sirens in the dark, sometimes but not always.
Grieving outside of yourself
To that it isn’t good to grieve as a community. Having people around to support you through a difficult time is certainly important. I don’t know where I would be without the many dear friends and family members who reached out when it first happened, and then throughout that awful first year. It’s just that my personal desire at this stage in the process is for a more private memorial.
But it’s not about me. Dad meant everything to my mother and other siblings. He was loved by his mother, sisters and many others. I can’t put my own personal style over the good of everyone else who feels his loss. I’m working on remembering that we all have different ways of approaching these things. Who knows, it might be better to have some public restraint on what could become self-pitying in private.
We’ll find out. But if you’re going through anything similar, don’t worry. I get you. It’s hard and it’s weird. But you’re a tough cookie. xoxo
