Grief and Loss: It is real this holiday season

In evaluating whether I want to add to the this blog this year, I looked at the good old Google Analytics, there have been almost 2400 views of the blog, and that is enough for my vain self’s ego to write again this year. I myself feel more reason to write and reflect this year with the passing of my father on Labor Day. (For those of you outside of the United States, Labor Day is the first Monday of September.)  For me grief and loss is real this year and I think I wanted to share my journey this year at the holidays—and maybe that will lend some personal credibility and not just because I am also a professional.

It serves to say here that my family is spread out. For you technical types we are “disengaged.”  We all live our lives in different states—hours or days away from each other.  For reference I live in Kentucky and my parents live/lived in Florida.  We occasionally if but rarely talk as a family, and if my family members talk amongst themselves about this—I doubt they will tell me, or one of them will act as a spokesperson (approved or unapproved).  If you are that self-appointed spokesperson, keep it to yourself unless you are going to compliment me about what a great writer I am.

The following account is my personal story line.  I have shown respect to not share much of what my family members have said or expressed; their feelings are not my feelings. It frames where I am going in this year's posts on surviving the holidays.

The Story

On the day Dad died, I had an answering machine message from mother that she had called the emergency medical services to take dad to the hospital.  I could not contact her because her cell phone was not working and apparently she did not have Dad’s cell phone.  I called my brother in another state and my brother who is a minister (and who knows some tricks having to do a lot of hospital visitation) was able to figure out which hospital to which Dad was taken.

I posted on Facebook a prayer request for my father.   A bunch of my ‘friends’ clicked on like and commented that they were praying.  I remember feeling numb but I continued with my errands and tasks since it was a holiday.  We did not go downtown to the riverfront as planned because we were waiting on information.

I talked with nurses a few times during the day in the Emergency Department and then in the Critical Care Unit. I could not actually talk with Dad or mom.  The emergency room nurse repeatedly told me that Dad was stable the two times I called. On the third occasion I was told Dad had been transferred to the Critical Care Unit and I was forwarded there.  The Critical Care nurse told me that mom had left the hospital to go let out the dog, and I could not talk with Dad.  I then finally got mom at home at about 8:00 that night.  She discussed Dad’s grave condition and that Dad may not make it and if he did make it he would have to be in a nursing home.   I got mom’s permission to call my uncle/dad’s younger brother in another state to inform him of Dad’s condition.  In the midst of the phone call to my uncle, mother rang in (through call waiting) to let me know in a desperate voice that she was going back to the hospital because they called and said that Dad was dying.

I had shut down my computer for the night by about 10pm.  I was waiting to hear back from mother. I got no phone call. I did not sleep well, waiting in suspense as to whether or not Dad made it through the night.

The day after

I got up 5:00 a.m. because it was my normal time and I had responsibilities with getting the kids to school and work. I still had the number of the Critical Care Unit.  I called and talked to the nurse I had talked to the night before.  She told me in a patronizing and annoyed tone of voice that my father had died the previous night at 8:39 and my mother had already released his body by phone to the mortuary.  I then numbly and ignorantly texted my uncle and copied my brother on it that I had information from the hospital that Dad had died the night before.   My brother called immediately asking if I meant for him to get the text.  I told my brother that I had not had a call back from mom and I called myself, and I assumed nothing.  My brother apologized that I had not been called last night.

My uncle texted back that he had learned from Facebook the night before that my father had died.  I then got online and found that one of my nephews and nieces had posted that my father/their grandfather had died.

Yes, I was annoyed and irritated about having been kept in suspense. But I was trying to be mindful and understanding that we were all in shock.  When we are in shock, we are not detailed oriented and not necessarily empathetic as people; we are not in a giving place.  My first impulse was that I really wanted to call the hospital administrator in Florida and complain about the insensitivity of the borderline personality nurse who should have had a lot more tact in telling a son that his father had died.  Telling me stuff may have been a HIPPAA violation, and that could have been especially punishing of the nurse and cost the hospital, but I try not to be a malevolent type; she was the safer object for my anger at the time.  Okay, I was moving from the shock stage to the anger stage of grief within 10 hours, I likened myself to the author of Ecclesiastes who kept his mind sharp even when he was getting drunk on wine.

My wife had told our kids while I was riding the exercise bike that my Dad had died.  I would have liked to be the one to have said it, but okay.  

I decided to go ahead and go to work.  There was no house to go to and sit with other family members and cry, and I was not one for sitting home alone.   While waiting at my son’s bus stop I heard George Strait singing

Let me tell you a secret about a father's love

A secret that my daddy said was just between us

You see daddies don't just love their children every now and then

It's a love without end, Amen, it's a love without end, Amen

 (Love without end Amen Aaron Barker writer, Muy Bueno)

I asked myself, as I fought the tears, whether going to work was a good idea?   I was a stubborn person who had fought through office politics and a doctorate, and I was going summon the stubbornness today. 

 I told my immediate coworkers that my father had died. A few of them expressed anger as to why I was working.  I emailed my boss and told him of the situation and that I would let him know of family plans.

There was nothing more self-righteously gratifying in giving her the intangible bitch-slap of telling her in almost a whisper that my father died last night.  The information morphed her stupid smile into embarrassed shock.  

One self-righteously satisfying moment was when one of the school teachers on the hospital unit I work came up with a cheesy smile and told me to smile in a playful tone.  There was nothing more self-righteously gratifying in giving her the intangible bitch-slap of telling her in almost a whisper that my father died last night.  The information morphed her stupid smile into embarrassed shock.  She apologized and then went into an angry “why I was at work?”   The correct response would have been for her to immediately shut up and creep away, but she silenced herself within 10 seconds.   

Awkward Following Days

I asked for permission to place an obituary in the daily paper of the metropolitan area in Iowa where we grew up and called home before Mom and Dad moved to Florida.  Even though connections had died or dispersed, I thought Dad needed to be honored.   I chose a recent picture of Dad instead of some picture from long ago.   Only two parties made comment on the online registry book, well Dad did not spend his time and effort there being a civic pillar of the community.

I also went on a retreat with my son to a church camp on the Friday following Labor Day.  I felt somewhat awkward, but I was going to press on. I was not going to sit at home and do nothing.

As the days went by I got sympathetic comments from people at church.  Some of the condolences were smooth and some were awkward.  Some were patronizing and some were respectful.  One that particularly struck me as awkward was from one of the older, self-righteous types, with a hearing impairment who continues to refuse to use the microphone at church business meetings.  He gave his condolences with poor eye contact and embarrassed smile and almost joking tone of voice.  Overall, it was awkward, because some of the people who never talk to me  . . . talked to me.

My mother announced about a week later that she was not going to have a memorial service for Dad.  She was going to hold onto the ashes and we could in-urn them together after she died.  She mentioned that we should move on and not hold onto anger.   It is not in good taste here to go into the dirty laundry, but on the one hand I thought one ill-mannered family member’s utterance was reminding me why we live the distances that we do, but then another part of me said, “What’s the difference anyway?”

Family aside, different people in my community wanted to do something for me.  The flowers from the church were nice but awkward.   The office wanted to give me a gift—I told them to make a donation somewhere.  As far as I was concerned, as part of my disengaged family life, I was moving on and I was focused on my own business and my own life as I had always done.

My brother the minister flew down to Florida and got some of my father’s things.  He came back through Kentucky on the way home driving Dad’s van with some of Dad’s possessions.  I accepted a number of things that had meaning to me.  Among his possessions I have Dad’s slide projector and film projector (still in their original boxes), his tool box and some of his Bibles (the man had about 30 of them).  I also asked to have his college annuals as he and I graduated from Iowa State University.  It was surreal that I had possession of some of Dad’s things that he cherished and protected, my kids will get my stuff one day too.

Still in Process

I got to talk with Dad on his 80th birthday.  He had gotten his copy of my book that I had published through the Springer Publishing Company.  He had already read the publisher’s proofs of it and he said that he was proud of what I wrote.     

I don’t have any regrets—I came to appreciate Dad as a human being with all of his weaknesses and quirks, but also his character and his values.  He was not an athletic person and tolerated my high school macho pursuits of baseball, football and wrestling and he sat smiling as I struck out, got pinned in wrestling matches or warmed the bench.   He did cheer me on as I got my masters degrees and was there to see me get my doctorate. I was fortunate to have him in my life—even if it was from a two-day travel distance and in the form of five minute conversations every few months.  

For the past 10 years, I knew that time was limited.  I hugged dad whenever I saw him and I made sure to have told him that I loved him.  I made the most of those moments as I knew that many of my peers had lost their parents by then. 

As I write this I admit that I am still grieving Dad and I will grieve him.  There were days early on where I felt essentially like I had just woken up from anesthesia and as if I was wearing concrete shoes.   Short of the George Strait moment, I am myself but more tired and not exactly motivated to do all that much--even work on my next book idea.  

Because he has passed on, the holidays will be different. This Christmas, going to Florida is off the list. I will not be sending Dad a playful novelty or thoughtful book as a Christmas gift.  I will not be talking to him at Thanksgiving or Christmas on the phone.   How I experience those differences is yet to happen--and I plan to blog on them tastefully.

Going up the letter of abstraction one rung, I have personally realized when writing this, that when you are from a disengaged family, you keep the distances from each other because it is about you living the way you want to live or you are surviving the crap from when you were close. So even in the midst of being struck with grief you are more likely able to continue living the way you do because the deceased loved one was out of sight--out of mind anyway when he or she was alive.  It follows that when you stop and ruminate, you get distracted from the life you have sought to create and live by moving away, therefore, the holidays present the challenge and thus the journey of surviving. 

Closing note:

I have written about many different topics on this blog over the past three years.  Feel free to go back in the blog.  The most popular post has been my one on Ebenezer Scrooge.  I hope that you are helped by reading this.