Dear Jesse: A letter to self on death & grief.
This post, like many others, is a tribute to my father pictured above. This letter I have written to myself from the perspective of ten years after the day that he died. It’s hard for me to grasp that I have spent a decade without being able to hug my father or hear him laugh. Yet, I am in gratitude. My father has and will always remain to be my biggest teacher and supporter. This post is to share what I have experienced and what he has taught me in his death. Dad, I love you infinitely.
Dear 17 year old Jesse,
It’s October 10th, 2010. As you are reading this, your friends just left, and your boyfriend is asleep next to you (don’t worry your mom won’t bust you for this in the morning). You can’t sleep but you’re exhausted.
I need you to know it’s going to be okay. Right now, you’re in a haze. Tomorrow, you will truly learn what it means to go through the motions. You will smile to ease others’ discomfort. You will act in ways that are pleasing to others because they have expectations for how you should grieve. They love you but they are uncomfortable with death. You are uncomfortable with death. As this is your first time with grief, you believe it’s your job to comfort them. You say “its okay” when their smiles fall and all they know to say is “I’m sorry”.
“It’s okay” is your shield and your smile is your weapon of defense. You learn to navigate your grief by pretending it’s not there, that’s what everyone else does. So instead of acknowledging, instead of feeling, you bury it deep. Life will throw you curveballs. It’s begging for you to face what feels like the scariest reality of them all, you lost him. You lost the man that listened. You lost the man that saw you for who you truly are and would not stop until you saw it within yourself. The one who made endless car rides zip by. The one who had no problem making himself look silly as long as it would build others up. The one who bought you anything you wanted from Whole Foods. The one who got up early every Saturday morning to make you breakfast and pack the car for soccer games. The one who never ran out of witty comments or sarcasm. The one who was so intelligent yet awful at helping you with homework. You lost your protector. You lost your best friend. You lost your dad.
It will take you a while to come to terms with this. You will try to fill the void with boyfriends. You will expect them to save you so you can escape the pain. You will control how you eat all in the name of “health”, but then overeat just to numb anything that asks to be felt. You will try to outrun your grief until you become injured. You will go out and party because you think that’s expected of you. You will feel alone in a crowded room and wonder what is wrong with you. In the meantime, your father will visit you in dreams. Dreams so painful you will wake up in tears. Even in dreaming you know that he is physically gone, yet you will not acknowledge it in waking life. His anniversary will come every year, somehow feeling so fast and yet unbearably slow. Some years you smile at his memory and others the pain is paralyzing. It all begins to feel like a dream. The thought that you can have a dad. The thought that the father daughter relationship was something you used to be good at. It feels so distant because it’s too painful to admit.
Then, the pain becomes something you cling to. It’s a reminder that something so beautiful existed. It takes a while, but somehow you learn. You learn that the pain was never something to be feared. The suppression made you sick, it made you anxious, & it forced you to check out of your life. But don’t worry. You woke up. You checked back in, and suddenly, your dad came back. You saw him when you watched videos of yourself. You felt him when you showed others kindness. You honored him when you shared wisdom or made an inappropriate joke. You realized that he is not gone. He lives on in an existence that is outside human comprehension. You speak to him and you see how you are able to continue on his legacy. You see the purpose behind his death. You embrace that death and pain are teachers. You learn that the pain is nothing to fear. Pain is simply emotion and it’s your purpose to share this with others. You realize that even in death, your father teaches you. You realize that the ones we love never leave us. It’s our refusal from acknowledging this pain that keeps us stuck from seeing this. This refusal keeps us heavy but it’s now your purpose to help others lighten their load. It’s always been your purpose to connect to the pain and to learn from it. It’s always been your purpose to heal.
Grief will come in waves and that is okay. That is normal. You never have to be over it. You embrace it, so now the grief walks alongside you, a reminder of your endless empathy of self & others.
Time doesn’t matter. What matters is that you slow down, you feel, & you let love in. The process will feel long and in some ways it is, but nothing is more important than this. You will mess up. You will triumph. You will cry. You will laugh. Most importantly, you will heal, and you will help others heal too. The entire time your father will be holding your hand, whispering to anyone that stops to listen “look, that’s my daughter and I am so proud”.
Love, 27 year old Jesse
