It seems like every few years I decide to start a blog. I write one, maaaybe two posts, then drop it like any other habit. But a couple of my friends (shoutout Mack and Jordana!) have started their own Substacks and inspired me. Plus, a Medill alum talked to my Magazine Reporting class yesterday and essentially told us all we need newsletters and at this point in my life, my Snapchat private story is the extent of me sharing a “newsletter.” Still, I thought maybe this could grow into something, even if only a thing I return to every few months when I’m bored. Better a blog than hard drugs, am I right?
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One thing I always seem to want to write about but don’t always talk about aloud is grief. This is a trigger warning that topics of grief and loss will be discussed below.
February is my least favorite month.
I’m grateful it’s the shortest month of the year.
February 2 has been my least favorite day for nine years now as it’s the day my dad died. The evening of February 1, 2014, I was scrolling through Instagram when I saw a post made by a girl I went to high school with saying her father died. I remember feeling so heartbroken for her, knowing for years that he was sick and unsure how much time she had left with him. It kept me awake for a while that night. The next morning, a Sunday, I was woken up by my parents voices talking in the kitchen and my dad loudly and clumsily walking out the front door. The man was STOMPING. Not because he was mad or anything, but because he was a big guy wearing boots fit for a big guy. I remember being annoyed that he wasn’t quieter leaving because I wanted to sleep in and my room at home is right off the kitchen. Not even an hour later, a cop pulled into our driveway and told my mom he had been in a single-car accident. Lost control at the wheel when his truck tires hit a patch of black ice and sent him flying through the median to hit the only tree you’d think someone would have to aim at to hit. Freak accident if you ask me. Next thing I knew, I couldn’t tell if it would’ve been better to be like the girl I knew from high school who pretty much knew her time with her dad was limited, or to be completely blindsided. Regardless, if I had known better, I would’ve jumped out of bed the second I heard the stupid clunky boots and made him take me to Big Boy for breakfast.
That was the last place we went out to eat together. My dad worked 8pm-6am five days a week so he grew to be quite nocturnal and spent much of the daylight hours sleeping. A couple days before the 2nd though, him, my mom, and I went to Big Boy.
We’d always go for shakes and French silk pie. I can count the amount of times I’ve been to Big Boy since then on one hand. And we used to go all the time. Every time my mom and I need to bring a dish to a holiday dinner on my dad’s side of the family though, we bring French silk pie. Store-bought, but the thought still counts.
Before my dad left for work the night before he died, we watched part of the movie We Bought A Zoo together. You know, the Matt Damon movie? I haven’t watched it since. My last memory being physically with him, we were watching that movie, so I worry that if I watch it again, I’ll associate a new memory to it. It’s honestly not that deep and it’s not like it’s in my list of top movies, but grief does weird shit to all of us.
Everyone deals with grief differently, and the last nine years have given me a lot of time to reflect on the ways in which I do or don’t deal with grief. Right after he died, I did everything I could to not think about it, which is silly. It’s not like you can just forget who you are and the cards you’ve been dealt without copious amounts of alcohol or drugs or a fucking lobotomy. I’d try to throw myself into my school work or start liking someone new at school and purposely put all my attention into a measly crush, just to distract from my life crumbling around me. At 23, I’ve noticed I still do this a lot. Maybe before the next anniversary of his death, I’ll talk to a professional and get to the bottom of that.
Personally, I tend to deal with my grief by making jokes. I am a big proponent of the dead dad jokes, because if you’re a part of the club, you might as well play into the perks! I think I’ve always made jokes about it because I know how uncomfortable it can be for some people to hear about or talk about death. I get it; it’s triggering and morbid and scary. Conversations about having a dead parent or loved one are so weird. Bringing up a dead parent feels very “pick me” in my brain, like “Oh, I’ve got this quirk about me that is really terrible actually and I’m gonna make it everyone’s problem! You’re about to feel grossly uncomfortable!” Maybe I’ve been conditioned to think this way because of the number of times I’ve brought my dad up in conversations and people went silent, or even worse, when I brought up missing him once in undergrad and a girl said, “I thought you weren’t going to talk about that?” as if I was talking about an STD. I’m actively unpacking how all this time, I’ve decided that making a joke about something incredibly traumatizing and then apologizing to the people around me for maybe making things uncomfortable has somehow been the better route than just being up front and real about what I’ve experienced and how I’m still working through it. Isn’t it a bit insane how we tend to shrink ourselves and our feelings to fit the rooms we’re occupying? Why don’t we instead find rooms big enough to hold those emotions?
I know it can be hard for people to hear about grief, especially if they are lucky and cannot relate to it. It’s one of those things where you never really know what to say to make someone feel better, but it isn’t always about making someone feel better. Sometimes, I want to talk out how I’m feeling, not because it may make me feel better per se, but because it’ll make me feel something. Just having someone to listen to stories I want to share or ask questions I want to answer, or even to shake me when I deflect from my feelings, means more than I can really articulate.
This isn’t the kind of exclusive club I’d like to be a member of. I’d take any extra seconds I could have with my dad over any velvet rope access. I’d give up my Taylor Swift Eras tour tickets or my Medill scholarship for five extra minutes with him, just for him to probably tell me I was an idiot for doing either of those things.
Maybe I’ll write a piece about my dad or dealing with grief later in my career. You know, profit off my trauma?
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TLDR: This Substack may or may not grow into something. Also, grief is a bitch. Miss you dad, but I’ve gotta figure out a way to bill you for my future therapy.