[Trigger warnings: death of parent; losses; grief.]
The other persistent feeling of the past few weeks has been a stronger wave of grief due to a new, deeper realization of my father’s death.
He died over a year ago and yet I don’t think I ever really grieved him. Apart from the first couple days right after his death, I hardly thought about it, I didn’t really realize that he’s gone forever. That I’ll never see him again, never talk to him again. That he’ll never know me — the real me — and I’ll never truly know him, either.
I think that when he died last summer, at first the pain was too intense to bear and I was in shock; then, that grief was pushed aside and covered up by the grief around the painful separation from — and subsequent, permanent loss of — my European (gender)queer ex-lover. And then life — the need to survive, to get practical things done, etc. — took over.
Now, the ending of not only a job but a whole career direction for me along with a more definitive move to a new, more stable house/living situation has allowed that old grief to resurface and actually be given some space. And it catches me in the most unforeseen moments — the sadness, the emptiness, the sense of loss, sometimes still the incredulity. And the tears — so many tears…
The Little Prince and the Fox 