How do you grieve?
That is something my husband still has difficulty doing after his father passed away last week. We went back to MI to be with family and it was a good thing for him to be amongst those who knew his dad and could share with him the good memories. Inevitably though, the most recent ones — the ones he’d rather erase altogether — would creep in and once again, the grieving stops and the resentment starts.
His father was a puzzle that up to the end no one really solved. He was a dreamer with grand plans. He was a very good weaver of stories. And that’s what caused a lot of conflict. Now his sons don’t know which ones were true and which ones were…well, stories. He was proud…very proud. He wouldn’t ask you directly for a favor but would go about doing so in a roundabout way that you end up offering to do something for him. That way, I guess, he could say he didn’t ask but was offered. He craved attention and had to be the top guy. He was brilliant and had a mind like a trap. And pity the one who would dare challenge him because FIL would cut him off from his circle with nary a second thought.
He needed my MIL and their divorce crushed him. They thought for a while that he was picking up the pieces but apparently, he never did. MIL was the glue that held their family together and after they parted ways, he lost interest in himself and barely focused on work and family.
The past couple years saw a rapid decline in his health. We all tried to help but trite as it may sound, you just cannot help someone who didn’t want to be helped. He had health issues that he didn’t address until he was forced to. He spent the last year of his life in assisted living because no one could give him the 24-hr care he needed to manage his diabetes, failing kidneys and the effects of multiple strokes.
He didn’t care to know me or my son. He would come to our house when he needed something but never asked how we were. I feel sorry that he missed out on the unconditional love that his grandson would have given him had he shown the slightest bit of interest. I feel resentful that here was someone, physically present, who was by blood a grandfather but didn’t act like one. Thousands of miles away, there is another grandfather who enjoyed every bit of little time he had spent with his grandson and who we know would give up his life for the little one.
One the way home from MI, my husband told T, “Son, you can ask me anything you want about my dad.” And after a few seconds he asked, “How come my grandfather died and I don’t feel sad?”
And that is sad.
