Death of an Estranged Father
Feb. 19th, 2014 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
semiotic_pirateAbout an hour before I was scheduled to leave work today I got called by my half-sister and was baldly told that my biological father had just died (of a heart attack). Let me preface this by saying that I have been estranged from this man since I was in my early 20s, or at least that's when I realized that my relationship with him qualified as estranged.
I expressed my sympathy to her and then found out that there would be neither a wake nor a funeral. When I heard this news on top of the fact of his death I felt numb, literally, my lips faded out and I started feeling nauseous and likely was going into a bit of shock. By the end of our short conversation I just kept asking that if she needed anything to let me know; because most of me felt that she was the one who really was experiencing this as a loss. I had visions of sending casseroles and whatnot even though I don't even have her address.
Only one person other than myself in my department was still in the building and I got it out that I had to leave and why. It was really good to get a hug and to have this person notify the rest of the team for me because I really didn't want to deal with that.
It's strange. I've been thinking the last couple of days about the coming anniversary of the death of my son and first husband… and this new death seemed to pack itself on top of the memory of those, more hurtful deaths.
When I say that I was estranged from my father - it is a long and sordid tale of an abandonment, of the typical "deadbeat dad" with a brand new replacement family, of a long string of broken promises before I decided I'd had enough and never wanted to have any more contact with him. Since my childhood, further details surrounding my father and my Mum and the latter's actions and mental instabilities which may or may not have had some affect on my father's ability to keep his promises, etc. came to light. I still don't know what to think of these "revelations" and how much of the whole thing might be a case of "he said, she said".
A few years or so ago, my half-sister mentioned that she thought it might be good if we mended our fences; however, when I finally agreed to make the attempt he insisted that our initial communicating be done via the phone (which I can be really uncomfortable with when talking to any but the closest of friends) and I couldn't do it… and he wouldn't compromise on that and I wasn't ready to give him the power of dictating how we were going to do the mending. So I let it lapse and tried to make my peace with the fact that it would never happen.
There's not a lot that I remember of my childhood, just snippets of scenes here and there, and I only have a few memories of him. In none of these memories can I recall what he looked like other than he was slightly shorter than I am now and that he had brown hair. I am pretty sure he had a mustache.
Now I'm left without any possibility of any kind of reconciliation or relationship. Mostly, I feel like it doesn't really matter. There is a very small part of me, the one that feels sadness whenever I see a strong father/daughter relationship depicted in a film, that mourns the "what might have been" which likely never would've happened.
I'm taking a few days off - huzzah for paid funeral leave days - because I need to navel gaze about this a bit more. How does one make peace with the death of an estranged parent? Is there a how-to manual out there or an IKEA style instruction sheet that could help me navigate this strange occurrence? I know I shouldn't feel devastated; overall, I'm left feeling confused and estranged from any proper mourning.
I expressed my sympathy to her and then found out that there would be neither a wake nor a funeral. When I heard this news on top of the fact of his death I felt numb, literally, my lips faded out and I started feeling nauseous and likely was going into a bit of shock. By the end of our short conversation I just kept asking that if she needed anything to let me know; because most of me felt that she was the one who really was experiencing this as a loss. I had visions of sending casseroles and whatnot even though I don't even have her address.
Only one person other than myself in my department was still in the building and I got it out that I had to leave and why. It was really good to get a hug and to have this person notify the rest of the team for me because I really didn't want to deal with that.
It's strange. I've been thinking the last couple of days about the coming anniversary of the death of my son and first husband… and this new death seemed to pack itself on top of the memory of those, more hurtful deaths.
When I say that I was estranged from my father - it is a long and sordid tale of an abandonment, of the typical "deadbeat dad" with a brand new replacement family, of a long string of broken promises before I decided I'd had enough and never wanted to have any more contact with him. Since my childhood, further details surrounding my father and my Mum and the latter's actions and mental instabilities which may or may not have had some affect on my father's ability to keep his promises, etc. came to light. I still don't know what to think of these "revelations" and how much of the whole thing might be a case of "he said, she said".
A few years or so ago, my half-sister mentioned that she thought it might be good if we mended our fences; however, when I finally agreed to make the attempt he insisted that our initial communicating be done via the phone (which I can be really uncomfortable with when talking to any but the closest of friends) and I couldn't do it… and he wouldn't compromise on that and I wasn't ready to give him the power of dictating how we were going to do the mending. So I let it lapse and tried to make my peace with the fact that it would never happen.
There's not a lot that I remember of my childhood, just snippets of scenes here and there, and I only have a few memories of him. In none of these memories can I recall what he looked like other than he was slightly shorter than I am now and that he had brown hair. I am pretty sure he had a mustache.
Now I'm left without any possibility of any kind of reconciliation or relationship. Mostly, I feel like it doesn't really matter. There is a very small part of me, the one that feels sadness whenever I see a strong father/daughter relationship depicted in a film, that mourns the "what might have been" which likely never would've happened.
I'm taking a few days off - huzzah for paid funeral leave days - because I need to navel gaze about this a bit more. How does one make peace with the death of an estranged parent? Is there a how-to manual out there or an IKEA style instruction sheet that could help me navigate this strange occurrence? I know I shouldn't feel devastated; overall, I'm left feeling confused and estranged from any proper mourning.
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no subject
Date: 2014-02-20 07:03 pm (UTC)I don't know about a manual, cheat sheet, or map, but it's grief, and grief will have its way. You are grieving a loss, and you get to define that loss. When my mother died (it will be 10 years in March), I grieved the loss you describe of the chance of reconciliation, and the loss of the mother I wanted and never had and now never will have. I think you can own feeling devastated, I did-both own it and feel it. While my mother lived there was still a hope, however faint, that we would mend our relationship and I would get something I needed from her even if I couldn't quite specify it; once she was dead I no longer had that hope. I saw a therapist for a few months to hash it all out and have a safe place to grieve.
It might help you to make up a ritual or ceremony to mark your loss. It helped me. I bought my mother's favorite flowers and kept them on my desk at work, every week for a month after she died.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-21 12:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-03-08 01:37 pm (UTC)