On Grief - An Unexpected Experience

As some of you may know, my father has been dealing with cancer for quite a while now, and he's recently been given 3 weeks to live.

I knew that he was going to die. Everyone does.

You think you can prepare/ You think "I know they're going to die so ill make peace with it now and it'll be easier." But its only true a little bit.

I didn't like my father, and I still don't feel great about him. He was horrible to my mother and my siblings, and sickeningly nice to other people. I still don't know why he's like this, I don't think I ever will. As I got older, and i saw him mellowing as a person, I thought; "I'll just wait for him to get old, and then everything will be ok and we can be normal and I can have a dad." but he's dying soon.

I don't think we'll ever get that. He did so much damage, and he won't even be around to repair any of it.

If you've ever been a victim of any kind of domestic abuse, especially from a parent, you know what it's like to bargain and convince yourself they love you and there has to be a good reason, or maybe you were bad and deserved it, etc. Then you feel the creeping feeling as you grow up, that its not you, but you can't do anything. You feel trapped and there rarely is anyone who helps you in a way that's meaningful. 

You hope that one day, they'll magically realise they're horrible and turn around with tears in their eyes and tell you they were wrong and they're sorry and everything is going to be ok and they love you.

But they don't.

Because, even if they did magically say it on their death bed, like my dad did, it still feels wrong. It feels like they're saying it so they can feel better about themselves before they die, or to get you to tell them its ok, because 'they're dying you're supposed to be nice to them'. 

If he really ever felt that way, even if he only felt it when he knew he was going to die, why didn't he tell me when we knew it was going to happen so many years ago?

I want to believe him, I do. I want to so that I can be ok and be ready to let him go. but i don't and I'm not.

So, basically, there's nothing you can do to prepare.