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Today is 10 years since our very wonderful (/frustrating/silly/clever/charismatic) Dad died. I found this thing I wrote in some old stuff and feels fitting this year. The amount I want t say about grief after 10 years is not really consonant with The Bad Microblogging Site
but:
but:
1) I think I expected grief to be like a heartbreak that you get over but honestly, it's no less now than it was ten years ago. But I function better alongside it, it's a companion that brings insight as well as anger and sorrow. Sometimes even joy.
2) After so long you try to guess their reactions to things. Every time I think I have my Dad pinned down, I remember something else about him that makes me change my mind. Good! May we all be remembered that way, may we all be such a source of annoyance to our loved ones.
3) My Dad was fantastic at telling stories, a lot of which were about various cats he had growing up. I go back and tell myself these stories from time to time to make sure I remember them, along with his Cookie Monster and Groucho Marx impressions. You have to consciously hold
onto memories you want to keep - you lose the pathway to them if you don't go back to them enough times. I think about the day my Dad died; I also think about watching the sharks at London Aquarium with him, or going to White Hart Lane, or watching Any Dream Will Do.
4) Grief makes you want to blow up the extreme good and the extreme bad about a person, toggle between saint and bastard, unimpeachable and awful. But who people are or were to us is forged in the everyday, and in that we were lucky - he loved us and was proud of us.
5) Finally, part of the unfairness of grief is the onus on people left behind to explain a person or sum them up. You can never do this! This is good! Imagine if you could be so easily summarised. I'll never get done talking about my Dad (he would be thrilled by that).
Thank you for bearing with me - ironically I've been off twitter to get some writing done and my brain is GLUE just when I'd love to be super eloquent and precise, but I refer you to 5), everything you can say about someone is both inadequate and MORE than enough.
Huge love to everyone who has lost people, especially this year - and to the very special Dead Dads Club, who are a remarkable bunch, not least @oliviamarcus who continues to be funny and correct in all things. https://twitter.com/oliviamarcus/status/1360544515082362881
