Joseph Frances Flanagan 19th March 1926-23rd Jan 2004
As we reach the anniversary of my father’s passing, there is still a part of me that has not come to terms with loosing him. After many years, I continue to find it hard to use the words “Dad” and “Dead” in the same sentence.
Loosing him was always up there on that list, the one entitled;
“Things not allowed to happen anytime soon, if ever.”
Songs he sang to us as children still reverberate through my head. Every time a particular one popped into my thoughts I would quickly push it out of sight, out of mind.
“I’m sending a letter to Daddy, the address is heaven above.”
That image always brought dread to my heart. Even now singing along as I type makes me cry… How could I truly comprehend the loss of someone who had always been there? Nothing could have prepared me for such a unique experience and like few others; it changed the landscape of my life forever.
So can we ever really come to terms with the issue of death?
Is there a correct way to process or deal with loosing someone?
Grieving seemed to have a time and place, an incubation period, a definite yet unspoken shelf life, but in reality how could we know. It was never talked about at home, never taught in school and generally avoided wherever possible. Only when it landed in my lap did I start looking for answers to questions that I never wanted to face.
My father used to say he had a very different relationship to death than I.
Raised in an Irish catholic family in Limerick, Ireland, he recalled how he and his friend Joe O’Brien would often walk into people’s homes when a dead occupant had been laid out in the front room, waiting for people to pay their respects. They would just pop in to have a look and check them out, he said. Death for him was not hidden from view, unlike me who never saw a dead body close up until the day I saw him in the Chapel of rest.
What did I know of death and loss? What had I been taught?
I thought I was lucky having got to such an age without experiencing anyone near and dear to me dying, but was I really?
THEN IT HAPPENED!!!
Then followed the acceptable time of grieving, letters of condolence, and stories from those who knew him. The reluctant send off, the drug of disbelief and the first day that I woke and didn’t need to remember he had gone. I recall my mother saying how she would wake thinking “Oh was it all a bad dream” and then to be hit by the harsh reality of life or in this case death. Noticing a day had passed and I had not thought of him made me feel bad, how could I have gone a whole day and not remembered.
Soon after I bumped into a colleague at work and told her my news. She hugged me close and whispered in my ear.
“I’m sure that little boy inside you must be hurting real bad,” she said.
“My father died 14 years ago and I have to say it does not get any easier.”
“Oh great” I replied, “I thought you’re supposed to say things to make me feel better?“
But how could she? How could it ever be better? As I once heard say, it never gets better it just gets different.
Death came like a thief in the night stealing him away, leaving a void, a void that can never be filled.
I appreciate that this may not be relevant to everyone, that some may feel totally at peace and resolved with the passing of their loved ones. I’m addressing those like me who felt anything but complete.
Now don’t get me wrong I don’t wake up each day wanting to phone my father, I didn’t even do that while he was alive. Just sometimes I would give anything for one more phone call.
So I wonder what if anything we can do differently?
Since the reality on the outside is set in stone, in fact carved in stone standing on his grave, we might need to look inwards for an answer.
Maybe we just made a simple mistake, thinking we should feel differently than the way we do!
Maybe we are not meant to get over it, maybe we are not meant to get over anything!
What if it’s all the wrong way around?
What if it is the grief that needs to let go of us?
Releasing its grip on us only when it’s had its time, a length only it knows.
Death cannot only be a shock but sometimes can put you into a “State of shock”. This state can be nature’s way to help you cope, becoming mentally, emotionally or physically frozen in part by shock, can help you deal with intense situations. There are countless stories of people injured in accidents walking away carrying their own limbs, numbed out in a state of shock. Others who witness horrors and atrocities find a state of shock takes over and guides them through, only to later feel the impact.
The state of shock can be nature’s way of spoon-feeding us reality a bit at a time so we literally can cope with it and not choke.
As the freeze of shock starts to melt, it allows more of the unexpressed feelings from the trauma to surface. For many that process goes unnoticed and feeling just gets mixed up with other feelings, attributed or blamed on something else. While others report that even years after the trauma feelings resurface as if asking to be felt again needing more expression.
Here our feelings just need to be felt and expressed, no need to be understood. An emotional process that make no sense, but being that it is not a logical process why would it make sense? So best to stand out of our own way and just feel and express.
As the motto says, “Just feel the feeling until the feeling no longer needs to be felt”.
It was in year three after my father died when I felt myself come to a stop in the supermarket. It was as if they was a little boy deep inside of me crying out …
“How can my Daddy be dead?” as if a part of me had just woke up and only found out he was gone. Sure it might sound crazy but it was what I felt. So rather than try to understand it I just stood under the feeling and let it shower over me. It stopped when I presume it no longer needed to be felt.
“Now where did I leave my father’s phone number?”