First, let me start with a small disclaimer. The post you are about to read is pretty full of raw emotion. While I do not want to be a downer, the topic of losing a child is a sad and emotional one. Not only that, but it is intensified when a holiday like Father’s Day approaches. The post is something other parents of loss can surely relate to, and to parents who haven’t experienced a loss, maybe it can serve as a small window into what parents, like me, go through even years after the loss.
So, Father’s Day, a day that used to just be a fun “Hallmark Holiday” is now kind of like a cuss word once you suffer a loss. It is a yearly reminder of what you do not have and do not get to experience. But how can one really put into words what it is like to go through this sort of thing? Even now I stare at the little cursor blinking on the screen and I struggle to put into words what Father’s Day is for me. I feel like with everything I type, I hit the backspace button as much as I am typing.
This is my second Father’s Day without my little girl Hannah. I thought as the time passed and the anniversary number got higher this would all get easier. It seems to me now the opposite is true. It just gets harder and harder.
I think one of the harder aspects of Father’s Day is the advertising. I understand they need to advertise and I know they cannot please everyone. I am not even suggesting they need to change the strategy they market this holiday with. But I will tell you watching the advertising is like a dagger in the heart. Every time they say about how a father does whatever, I get to remember I do not know how those things work. I get to think about everything I do not get to do and all the experiences I am not going to have.
Another aspect comes to mind when I think of Father’s Day is a note to the Father’s who have not experienced a loss or those with living children. Please do not take your child for granted. Cherish what you have. Remember, as you complain to yourself that your child is being clingy and annoying because they just want to be held, I am sitting here longing to hold my little girl. Remember as you complain about going to your child’s recital or event or whatever, I am going up to my daughter’s gravesite. Remember as you are saving money to send your child to college, I am putting money away to buy my daughter a tombstone. As you pick out your child’s outfit, I am picking out the flowers to rest on her grave. What I would not give to be in a place where my reality was one where I could experience all those things.
Father’s Day is inevitable. It cannot be avoided. The ads will be on the TV. We as men will be expected to go celebrate Father’s Day with our fathers and in-laws even though we really do not want to. We will be forced to go to restaurants and places; possibly even be asked “are you a dad?” Just to have to explain that “Yes, I am a Father, but my baby is in Heaven.” I would love to just avoid it all and stay home and hide that day, but that would not be fair to anyone else. Yes, Father’s Day will be unbearable.
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