The pain is still there like an ice shard in my heart. My father died when I was 15, I am 5 months from thirty. I was thinking about what kind of advice to give to younger friend a friend who had his dad die around the same age. I came up with the advice or the insight that its hard to for give your dad for being the man that he was not the man that you needed him to be. Buts it’s brutal. This has just brought everything back up. It’s like it just happened. As I sit here at work I just want to break down and weep, but I can’t because it is a big open office. Fortunately its pretty empty and no one can see the tears in my eyes.
I think that it has been hard to grieve for both of us because we had bad relationships with our fathers. My friend’s beat the hell out of him on a whim and even through him through a glass coffee table. Mine was emotionally unavailable and favored my brother so badly that even the neighbors noticed and commented to my mother. But I still loved him even though I hated him and I still miss the times I felt close to him though they were so rare. I think that I used my hatred for him to cut off any feelings of loss I had. Its like I denied the pain of the loss of the good stuff using the hatred that he earned. What’s worse is that my new boss at this job that I completely love is just like him in some ways. He has a terrible temper and no patience. He gets pissed off at me for the slightest things. He isn’t a bad guy I like him a lot and we have a lot in common. But every time it happens I have a flash back to trying to help my dad with stuff or going to get him tools from the basement and not being able to find them and having him blow up on me. I have to remember it’s ok to touch the pain as long as you aren’t just wallowing around in it you are using it moment to let go, forgive and move on. That’s how you heal. I think I’m going to post this as a day log before I get shy. Maybe it will help some one. I wonder if there is room in the grief node. There is I think I will do some formal research on this I bet it will help me and the node could use a solid write up with some of the more formal psychological understanding and sound advice in it. Yay that makes me feel better. A bit.