Dark Day

 I sat down to write the post for Act 9.  This weekend, I made a pie to celebrate my wonderful mother's 61st birthday.  But I can't seem to write about that today, because I'm feeling weighed down.

The day after the joy and celebration my mom's birthday brings a dark and sad remembrance.  On February 23, 1979, my father Ronnie Faircloth lost his battle with testicular cancer.  He died when I was only 3 years old, so I basically grew up not knowing my dad.  His absence was just a fact of my life.  Rhonda has blue eyes, curly hair, and no dad.  The only thought I gave to it at the time was how much attention it got me when I was in school.  In fact, I think I just assumed it didn't phase me all that much because I was so young.

Until I had children of my own.

I remember the year The Boy turned 3.  I recall when he hit the age I was when Daddy died.  It became VERY clear to me that if either his father or I were to vanish from his life, he would be impacted.  That realization brought me up short, and got me to thinking about how it must have affected me.

At first it was confusing.  I couldn't articulate how losing my father impacted me at the time, because I was so out of touch with my feelings. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I learned early to gloss over the unpleasant feelings in favor of being industrious and productive.  I kept moving, so there was no time or energy to waste on dealing with those negative thoughts or feelings.  All I knew is that if I probed - even a little bit - there was a sharp pain and usually tears.  Just like the joke about the guy who says to his doctor, "Doc, it hurts when I raise my arm."  The Doctor replies, "So don't raise your arm!"  Thinking about my dad hurt, so I left it alone.

Over the years, I did notice some patterns creeping in.  February 23 was almost always a horrible day in my classroom.  My wrath would be easily incurred.  My usual patience would be noticeably absent.  But, I would tell myself That's normal!  It's the dead of winter, in the long days between Christmas and Spring Break.  It makes sense to be frustrated and weary.  I also noticed patterns in my relationships with men.  There's a reason why people joke about girls with "Daddy Issues" being easy prey.  I was no exception. And while it's quite obvious now what was going on, at the time,  those things seemed completely unrelated to me.

Even when I started to probe, I found myself asking the question How do you mourn for someone you didn't even know?  See, my Dad was a mystery to me.  Sure, I had a few stories here and there that my Grandma or Uncles would share.  I knew the story of when he was a kid and set the kitchen curtains on fire with the toaster, the time as a teenager when he got chased by a bull in somebody's field, the time he took the school bus he drove for a joy ride.  But I didn't know much about the man he was.  Granted, he was barely a man when he died at age 26,  but I wanted to know what kind of a husband and father he was, and that information just wasn't readily available.  I assumed that asking my mom to tell me about my dad would be painful for her, and since I was in the business of stopping my mom from feeling pain, I didn't feel I had the right to ask.

So I didn't.

For years and years, I just glossed over the pain.  My grief became an anchor - weighing me down and holding me in place.  It's true, I got used to the weight.  It became an accepted fact of life, and it never occurred to me that it might be possible not to carry it.  Now that I am in treatment for my codependency, I had to dive head first into that ocean.  I had to probe deeply to stir up all those feelings:  the bottomless sense of loss, the illogical feeling of abandonment - as if he had the choice to leave me, the frustration at the unfairness of having to live without my dad, and yes - the anger at those who knew him but didn't tell me every last thing there was to know about him.  All those feelings have been rising up like a tsunami of feeling - put off for 36 years - but demanding to be felt now.  And if I let this anchor of grief keep me in place, I am going to drown.

So today, I'm trying something new.  I am acknowledging all of these dark and awful feelings.  I'm swimming into the wave, moving with it instead of remaining fixed while it crashes over my head.  I'm trying to let go of the anchor that has held me in place.  And maybe, just maybe, when the storm has passed, I might be able to swim away with the memories of the grief, rather than carrying the weight anymore.

So I'm not going to pretend like today is a great day.  But I do have faith that tomorrow will be.