The Club

The Club

I am in the club. You know, the club you don’t want to be in, but everyone will meet you there. You have no idea what it’s like until you are in this club.

My father passed away 3 months ago and I got a call from a good friend and he said “Chris, I told you, it’s a club you don’t want to be in but when you are in it you understand”. That hit home.

I thought of how many times a mother or father of a friend of mine passed away and I said, “Oh, I am sorry”, or “If you need anything, let me know, I am always here for you” or, “I can’t imagine what you are going through”. But the truth is, no one can understand what you are going through. No, you don’t want to talk about it until someone begs it out of you and it becomes the only thing you want to talk about. It’s a sad fixation. You get it out of your head for a moment and then someone says something and then thoughts, actions and ideas all float around your loss.

It’s losing half of you. Half of who made you. I had a great family, my parents loved me, my dad was a hard worker and my mom raised me at home. They taught me discipline, responsibility, loyalty, honesty and how to love openly (for the most part. That’s mom’s department). The best thing that happened to my dad was being able to father two girls.

The truth is, you don’t get to pick your birthday and you don’t get to pick your death day either. But, the day you are born as a sweet, delicate little infant, you sign the unknowing contract. The contract that says you will die one day. You don’t know when that day is, you don’t know what from either. Everyone will have to go through what I am going through now in their own way. We will all lose our parents. It’s a fact of life that we don’t spend much time learning about or preparing for.

Here is the best lesson I have learned so far: Don’t be angry with dad or death. My anger will not make him come back. It’s not going to make him feel any worse, he’s in the best place ever, HEAVEN! All anger will do is destroy my happiness, and me. It’s not going to spare him his happiness. Anger is wasted here. But, unconditional love, now that’s another thing. If I can learn to love my dad unconditionally, I can forgive him for all of the stuff that I got mad at him for (stupid kid stuff to significant things). Without forgiveness, the negative feelings can pester and when dad is at rest, I am not. Loving someone unconditionally releases you of the bad stuff and that leads to forgiveness and putting that bad stuff to rest.

I can tell you one thing, my dad wouldn’t be any happier knowing that I am crying everyday or starving myself to death because he is gone. He would rather me soak up the sun, go to the beach everyday and live my life the best I can, the way he taught me. That’s what I have been doing. I have been working diligently, I found a creative outlet in writing (Thanks EJ), and I am doing the things that I enjoy.

Of course I miss my dad and believe me when I say all of this it’s not always rainbows and butterflies. There are good days and bad days. It took me a few weeks to realize that it’s okay to smile and laugh again. Or, if I am not thinking about him for a moment, that’s okay too. There will come a time where I may not think about him all day (I’m not there yet). That just means I am living my life and he would want me to do that.

The last thing I will say is that all of those people that come to you and say sweet things: they are your friends. You can talk to them if it will help you. But don’t be afraid to get professional help, like a grief counselor or therapist. I have gone 26 years without therapy or mood enhancing drugs but I knew this was the biggest devastation that I had ever been through and my friends couldn’t pick up all the pieces. I got a counselor, then I got another one because I didn’t like the first one and I have moved mountains of emotions with progressing to “completeness” as they say. I refused any chemical help so I went through all of the natural feelings and emotions but this is obviously based on a personal case-by-case basis. Do what’s right for you.

To end, everyone does this stuff differently. I just wanted to share the tidbits that I had never heard before that really made sense to me. My hope is that someone will read this and feel not so alone, scared, troubled or angry. You always have a friend in the club.

RIP Daddy, I will love you forever. James A. Keillor III, 1946-2013