Grief and Loss

A list of things I’ve lost in the four months since my last post:

• my father
• 20 pounds
• patience with my rambunctious sons
• the weight of other’s expectations

It probably looks like my weight loss was in response to my dad’s death. But that’s not what happened. (Although the irony isn’t lost on me, because my weight and body image has always been inextricably linked to my father-daughter relationship.) I started losing weight in response to my hypertension diagnosis, at the end of January.

I was halfway to my goal towards the end of February when the familiar signs of depression set in: fatigue, lack of interest in things, apathy.
If there were any chance of me getting out of it, Russia’s invasion into Ukraine put a kibosh on it. Why fight my depressive tendency when there was so much to be sad about? Then on the evening of March 1st, my aunt called to tell me Dad died.

The intricacies of our relationship are complicated and too much to encapsulate in one post. At the time of his death, Dad and I had been estranged for the fourth or fifth time. I attempted a Hail Mary at the beginning of the year when I learned of his declining health. In my last email to him, I expressed interest in visiting him but was scared to due to our history. He never responded.

I’m sharing this part of my life because it’s dominated my mental health the last few months. Mourning a parent you didn’t like or respect but loved wholeheartedly is difficult. Reconnecting with people from my past as a result of Dad’s death has been helpful, but emotionally jarring nonetheless. When my parents’ divorced, there was no love lost on either side. The acrimonious battle that ensued left me and my sisters in between Mom and Dad, and as the eldest I shouldered an emotional burden I only recently put down.

Losing a parent is a rite of passage, I’m told. It’s one of the the top five most stressful life events. And while it hasn’t been without its stress and tears, I also feel a relief. Now I know how it ends. It won’t be any different than it was, and there’s no hope for reconciliation. I can stop trying to make a connection with my biological father work. I don’t need to be the “bigger person” anymore. There are no more excuses to be made on his behalf.

He lived his life on his terms, and now I can live mine.