Losing A Parent || Ten Years On

I've been thinking about this subject for a while now. Friends and family of mine may know that I lost my dad when I was 14. Not quite 10 years ago but it will be in November. I have a similar post that I wrote a little over a year ago 'Living With Grief' which goes into a little more detail about that day but this is more about the emotions and feelings you feel after some time.

It wasn't a known thing that was going to happen. It wasn't an on-going illness but it was still an illness to an extent. My dad died in the afternoon of the 17th Novemeber 2006 in Southampton General Hostpital. He died suddenly and unexpected for a 38 year old man that everyone thought was healthy, but he was infact a prisoner of alcoholism. 

Being 14 is a weird age to loose someone so close that is supposed to be around a lot longer. It's an age where you're growing up fast, and you understand certain feelings that maybe a child wouldn't as well, but you're still vunerable and you don't really know how to deal with the emotions you feel. It made me grow up super fast. I'm close with my family, my mum and sister but my sister had a different dad and I was my dad's only child, so I felt really alone when I started to grieve. 

So much has happened in my life the past decade. I've travelled the world, experienced incredible things but I've missed out on some "normal" things. 

Having a parent that's passed for birthdays, exam results, first independent travels, moving away from home, meeting long term relationships has been tough at times. 

Growing up I didn't really know how to use the feelings I was experiencing. I didn't really know how to react. Sometimes I'd just get really angry or I'd bring up the fact that he had died in a blunt way to get a reaction out of people because I felt like I was the only one suffering these emotions. It was a confusing time. 

My sister, my mum and myself have all lost our dad's early. My mums dad committed suicide when she was just 24 (I think) and my little sisters dad died in a motor bike accident just a couple of years ago. As sad and unfortunate as it is, it helps. It's a feeling I never wante my little sister to ever have to feel but unfortunately she did and it's brought us all even closer than we were before. 

10 years on from loosing my dad and I still feel emotions serge through me from time to time. The feelings don't go away but they get a little more tame with time. I guess I never really took the time to deal with it as a teenager so every now and then I'll get upset about it and break down. I still will think about my dad atleast once a day, through a memory or a photograph or a song. 

I'll see dad's and their daughters in the street and get a lump in my throat and butterflies in my chest. I'll hear Bryan Adams come on the radio or on shuffle and I'll either smile or feel sad. 

I often think to myself how life would be if he was still around. Would I have done all the things I've done? Would I be in Australia right now living the dream? No idea. But probabaly because he was the one that got me into wanting to travel after he took me to morocco when I was 12. 

Ten years is a long time but it feels like yesterday. The feelings are still raw but I've learnt to let myself really feel when the feelings arrive in my body instead of pushing them away to deal with another day. It's not healthy pushing emotions aside and I did it for years and years. 

I don't think you can put a time limit on how long you're allowed to feel those very same feelings of sadness, guilt, anger and loss. 

I used to beat myself up so bad about the guilt I felt with the circumstances before he died, and I've finally learnt to believe in fate and things happen the way they do because that's just how it goes. It's not my fault. 

Loosing my dad as a teenager has definately impacted how I see life. As cliche as it is, you really don't get a second chance once you've gone. And I think that's why jumped at the chance of travel when it hit me like a train when I first went to africa. I knew I had to do some cool shit to tell my children one day like the stories I was told. 

I think that even though almost ten years have passed, my need for my dad has paused since the day I lost him. In 23 but I still feel like my inner child when I think about him. It's hard to explain, I used to be so angry at him for dying on me because of something like alcohol. I used to think how could you put drink before the life you made and miss out on so much. But I understand now that alcoholism is a sickness, an addiction and for him it unfortunately beat him. 

My inner child still aches for him when I think about him. I don't think I'll ever get over that. I lost him when I was vunerable and the time inbetween feels like it's stopped, so I miss like him a child would.

I still dream vividly about his face. And I hear his laugh and the way his face creased as he laughed. I miss him everyday but that's ok but the grief I feel is just part of my life. As much as is rather him still being around, I know if he could see me now he would be happy. And I'd rather have the memories that make me feel these raw feelings than not have a part of him with me atall. 

I haven't pre planned this post, I've just written how it's all come into my head so I apologise if it comes out a little jumbled, I just wanted it to be as naked and raw as the emotions are.