Grief is a sneaky thing.
On my way to a job interview two days ago, I was feeling particularly buoyed, having had the benefit of several almost back-to-back sessions with a new (and apparently very capable) therapist. As I drove, I reflected back on the conversations I’ve had with the new doctor, filling her in on the traumatic events of the past several years. In particular, we had concentrated on the events surrounding my dad’s sudden death: my very strong suspicion that my dad was poisoned, the horrific probate fight that drug on for years, the ex-business partner and my dad’s banker who framed my brother for bank fraud and sent him to prison for fifteen months (stealing Dad’s business in the process.) Yes, I know, I sound like a paranoid delusional crazy person, which is why I don’t talk about it much and that has apparently contributed greatly to my shaky emotional status of late.
All of this was in the mental stew that was boiling in my mind as I drove along heading for my job interview. I happened to notice a new business, a steel fabrication company. It just so happens that was the kind of business my dad owned. As I read the sign with the company’s name, I felt a little flutter of happy in the back of my mind. Pure reflex kicked in as a fully formed impulse presented itself in my consciousness. I reached for my cell phone, actually had it in my hand before reality yanked me back to the present. I was going to call my dad, anxious to tell him that I was taking control of my life again. It all happened in a split second – the jolt of happiness, the impulse to call, and then the clutch in my stomach as I remembered – he’s gone.
Suddenly, my mouth was agape, my eyes filled with tears and I felt the grip of grief. My dad has been gone for six years, not to mention the fact that I was consciously reviewing the circumstances of his death at the very moment that I had the impulse to give him a call. It was a surreal moment. I marvel at the capacity of the human brain to compartmentalize so completely that such an event can occur.
I wonder if the trauma of those events somehow stunted the natural process of grief. As I woodenly marched forward through all those months following his death, performing the necessary tasks by rote, somehow managing to do everything that had to be done, did I so successfully compartmentalize the events that I never fully experienced the grief? Or was it just some kind of “brain glitch” that allowed the two experiences to fully co-exist in my brain that day – the full realization and analysis of my dad’s death versus the complete momentary lapse of awareness that he is gone?
I don’t know the answer to that question. I only know that the stunned realization that I couldn’t call him that day, or any day, was so fresh, so intense, that it took my breath away. I miss my dad. Maybe the healing process has begun.
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