"I get knocked down, but I get up again"

It’s been about 5 weeks since I lost my Dad.

I don’t feel any less lost, hurt, devastated or shocked than I did when I first got that God-awful horrendous phone call from my poor Mom telling me that Dad had unexpectedly passed away in the early hours of that morning.

When I think back on that phonecall, I can remember being so shocked by such a truly ABSURD thing as my Dad dying that I kept asking Alun all that morning to “please just wake me up” because all it could be was a bad dream. It couldn’t be real that my Dad – strong, tall, can-bear-all-things man – had departed the Earth we all live and breathe on.

Friends I love tell me that it gets easier with time.

Well it’s 5 weeks later and I’ve spent most of the evening crying. Not the delicate crying, either – the ugly snot pouring out of my nose and gulping for air crying. That kind.

I miss him, guys. I miss my Dad so much!

It literally physically hurts to lose someone you love. It makes my chest ache. It makes every tentative beat of my heart BURN withing my lungs.

THIS IS SO PROFOUNDLY PAINFUL.

I have lost count of the amount of times I’ve held my phone out, ready to hit “Dad” on my contacts and just tell him about my day. I want to tell him funny things I’ve seen and heard and hear his chuckle and his stories.

I still can’t accept – I still WON’T BELIEVE that my Dad is gone.

He can’t be gone.

People say that with time, the grief will be easier to manage.

I’ve had time and it’s not easier – it hurts more, if anything.

That scene in “Cast Away” where Tom Hanks has made it out to the open Ocean on his raft and poor best friend/basketball ‘Wilson’ rolls of his perch and starts to drift away – to me, that represents my grief and time passing is Wilson bobbing away. Tom Hank’s character tries to save his best friend but he can’t get to him because the more he tries, the further away Wilson moves. I feel like that’s time. The more I try to ‘get past’ the grief of losing my Dad, the harder it is.

I’m back at full time hours at work. I’m trying my best to be ‘normal’ in my life and back to doing ‘every-day things’ but inside…inside I’m crumbling.

I’ve lost my Dad!!!

And it literally does feel as if I’ve lost him – as if we got separated in a huge department store without phones and I don’t know where he is or how to find him. That awful gut-wrenching moment when you’re small and you lose sight of your parent when you’re out somewhere? That’s what my grief feels like…like I’ve lost sight of my Dad but that if I keep calm and keep looking…I’ll find him again.

But I won’t find him again, will I?

I hate this.

I just want my Dad back, please God.