Grief

I have avoided writing this post for a while now—distracting myself with “more urgent” things that needed to be done. Wondering if it is too personal. All different and highly sophisticated forms of avoidance. Yes, it is a personal post. Yes, I have many urgent things to get done. And yes, I am optimistic this post will find the people who need to read it.

My dad passed away in 2024, leaving behind an abyss that sometimes feels unfathomable. So much so that I can go days without consciously thinking of him—not because I am healing, but because my nervous system gently tucks away the grief to protect me—disguised as life's busyness. We have a very caring and loving nervous system that will do all the sly things it can to keep us safe.

My spiritual coach once said to me that grief is love that has nowhere to go.

Love… with nowhere to go.

That is probably the only thing that has made sense to me as I have navigated life after my dad. The love for him just hangs in a vacuum as “missing him,” with no destination. Just existing in the shadow of his memories. I can close my eyes and imagine him so vividly. Some days I worry that these memories will fade, and I feel a stab of pain at the thought—as if I would lose a limb.

He didn’t just exist in my life as my dad. He exists and lives in my heart as a soul family I chose. What do you even do when you lose someone like that?

Some days I think back to the time when he was undergoing treatment for cancer. He would wait for me to wake up so we could go sit downstairs together. As a precaution, he agreed to always have someone walk with him—a loss of independence he accepted with grace. I wake up many days wishing I had gotten up an hour earlier, just so I could have spent one more hour with him outside. As if all the love I have now, with nowhere to go, could be sent back into the past.

Other days, I reflect on my last month with him. I was filled with so much rage. My mind could only work in technical and medical terms. I feared letting even one tear fall in front of him, lest he lose hope for his own life. I would sob in front of my partner, realizing I was already grieving him. My mind knew what my heart refused to accept—he was not going to be here much longer.

I wish I had been softer with him then. I wish instead of focusing on the next medicine or treatment or appointment, I had just sat and held his hand.

Yet I know I couldn’t. The little girl in me was losing her darling papa, and her heart was being ripped apart. She was angry at herself and the world for not being able to fix this for him. If she had let softness in, she wasn’t sure she could have kept going without falling apart.

He loved me so deeply that his actions are etched into my heart. We didn’t say “I love you” or have bedtime routines in our family. I didn’t need those to know I was deeply loved. He showed me—through every life decision, every step of the way. How do you navigate the loss of someone who loved you so preciously, in a way no one else ever can?

I also grieve his last few months—the pain he endured. I loved him fiercely—maybe not as much as he loved me, but pretty darn close—that memories of him in pain make my body stiffen. He met all the changes in his life with such immense grace that I am sometimes left wondering if there were undiscovered parts of him I never got to know. The calm, patience, and gratitude he showed were beautiful sides of him that I will carry in my heart.

This is grief. Messy thoughts. Insufficient words. A deep pain that lives in the fibers of the body. It is not supposed to make sense. We aren’t meant to grieve from the mind. That would not be fair to the memory of someone who lives in our hearts.

If you are grieving someone or something, I hope you have the space to feel without an expiration date, and the support to let yourself be held.

I only wish he can feel this love wherever his soul might be. May his entire being have a deep knowing that he was fiercely loved by three women, and so deeply cherished that he continues on in our hearts.