A Day All About You, Without You
It's my first Father's day without Dad. Here's how I'm feeling.
It’s been nine long months of missing Dad. While I hate willing time away, in many ways I can’t wait to get this infamous ‘year of firsts’ over and done with. Not because the important days (birthdays, holidays, other milestones) feel the heaviest with grief, my experience has been quite the opposite - I miss him most in the quiet moments, the ones with no cake and not marked on the calendar. But there is something about Father’s Day for someone without their Dad.
If it were a hallmark card, the front would read: A day all about you, without you.
In some ways we were lucky that in the months following Dad’s passing we had a bit of a baptism of fire when it comes to ‘firsts’. The day after Dad passed was my littlest brother’s 18th birthday, and we kept his body overnight so he could see his Dad on his special day (which if I’m honest is it’s own brand of cruel). A week later was Dad’s 69th birthday, followed by Christmas and then my 40th. So we braced and planned and compensated and tried to celebrate our way through the first few months, fuelled by the sort of adrenaline that comes from true threat: the threat (and reality) of losing one of the people you love most in the entire world.
Since then I’ve thought a lot about how unique losing a parent is, even though we’ll all go through it. Your experience of it depends on so many factors - how close you were, the circumstances of their passing and plenty of others. But I think for daughters losing their fathers, there’s something particularly discombobulating. Whether they were Dad-Of-The-Year or left a bit (or a lot) to be desired, grieving them is grieving your fiercest protector - the reality of them or the idea of them.
I remember in the lead up to Dad’s passing it was really important to me that I was holding his hand at the end. I don’t know why, I’d like to think I would’ve given it up for my siblings if they needed it, but for some reason, I knew that of his two hands I needed one of them to be mine as he left the world. Maybe it’s that I knew that it was the last time I’d hold my fiercest protector’s hands. The same hands that cut my umbilical cord, handmade me a medal the first time I swam 50m on my own, and held mine everywhere we went, even as I grew into an adult.
Many years ago, Dad and I were walking and talking about the idea of losing a parent. I’m paraphrasing but I remember him saying that when you lose a parent it’s like someone taking away one of your goalposts, so you have no guide through which to point your compass. And boy do I feel lost today.
I wish I had something to write here that would help anyone facing today without their Dad. But the truth is there isn’t anything. So today, I’ll be clinging to this;
The only thing worse than losing Dad would be never having him in the first place.
As far as Dads go, he was simply the best. Kind, smart as a whip and always, always there for his kids, who were without a doubt his greatest accomplishments.
To anyone missing their Dad today, my heart is with you. And Dad, wherever you are - I hope you know I won the Dad lottery with you. I’ll be holding your hand in spirit today and all the days, always.
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And a reminder that Australia’s Griefline - free and confidential counselling and support to people experiencing grief and loss across Australia, inclusive of remote, regional, rural and metropolitan regions - is there for you on 1300 845 745 or here 24/7.