How therapy gave me a new perspective on grief and Father’s Day
TheGrio...
In a personal essay, one writer recalls the emotions surrounding the third Sunday in June, and how he learned to look at the day and another sentimental day differently.
For nearly 30 years of my life, Father’s Day was a constant reminder of how perfectly fine my father was with subtle recognition. He didn’t need any major fanfare or expensive gift. Another pair of socks or ties to add to his impressive collection and a reminder that every time he stepped out of the house, he thought of himself as the flyest, funniest man in the world, was more than enough.
My father was my first best friend. The person who always had my back. Even if he didn’t show up to every event because he was heavily focused on providing for our family, I knew he cared. The sound of his voice and his unmistakable laugh used to reverberate in our house whenever he said something so funny it annoyed my mom but tickled him to death.
I haven’t heard that voice in more than eight years.
For a long stretch of time, Father’s Day used to represent a day of grief for me. It ran tandem with March 3 as a day I began to dread. The third Sunday of June used to represent gifts, a big hug, maybe breakfast, or a jam session listening to his record collection, which we attempted to alphabetize but ultimately failed because it would have just taken forever and appreciating the music meant more than organizing it.
Instead, whenever I go back home and go back to his room, I feel the emptiness. Bodies have inhabited the space, but the room has remained mostly unchanged since his last day in the house in February 2018. His room, complete with a recliner, a bed, and that massive record collection, still feels like he’s still there. Except I know he’s not. And he won’t be.
The two days I grieved the hardest about my dad were the day he died and the one-year anniversary of his passing. I cried solely out of shock at the fact that somehow I went an entire year without him in the physical. I’ve cried about how much he missed and as the years keep moving into my mid-30s, I kept hearing one phrase repeated to me over and over again: “Go to therapy.”
I used to process grief through my work-whether I’d write about it, talk out loud, or even go to the gym. But none of it truly processed the grief. It was shifting it elsewhere, giving it a new name or identity. It didn’t truly crystallize until a week before Father’s Day 2024, when I hit bottom. If all of my attempts consistently shook me back to the same place, why couldn’t therapy put my mental space somewhere else? I wasn’t reluctant to go, but stubbornness and the belief that “I can fix this” superseded everything else.
It took a while after my first session, but I would routinely ignore the topic of my dad before I finally broke. My therapist then gave me a proper workaround instead of sitting in the grief, masking it with something else. Speak loudly about your father. Speak boldly about your father. Celebrate him. Do not mourn him because you’re mourning what was missed, not what happened.
Sunday will be the eighth Father’s Day I won’t have with my old man. He died one month and one day before I turned 30. When he passed, after I gave a pseudo eulogy in his hospital room, thinking he was playing a practical joke just for a large group of people ot come see him, I pulled out a record from my growing collection and let the needle hit it.
“One Day” by UGK.
The song is mournful with three verses from three different perspectives. One man resented the fact that he’d die where he always hung out, because that was home. Another man weary for friends who’ve lost their lives to cruel circumstance, a third willing to curse God because his friend’s son died in a house fire. I played that song and that record solely because I wanted to hear my dad question if that really was Ronald Isley on the chorus (it wasn’t). I wanted that feeling of my old man and I doing something together.
Now, I look at Father’s Day as a moment to celebrate the dads around me. From the father figures who took me under their wing to the friends who’ve become parents in their own right.
Grief is a continuation of love. And a continuation of what was had and what remains with you, long after your favorite people are no longer here.