Acceptance

There have been 759 days that have passed since my Father did the same on 7/12/2014. Not once in those 759 days have I not thought of him. No one can be prepared for what the death of a loved one will do to an individual’s mental state and how it manifests in each person’s life is as unique to that person as their fingerprints. According to psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, there are 5 stages of grief:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

So, I suppose that I would have gone through each of these, maybe even in this order. The one I hate the most? Acceptance. There was a long time where I couldn’t even say the word “dad” without getting choked up. Lately I have allowed myself to talk about him more and I am always surprised that I’m able to do so without my voice starting to shake and/or my lip starting to quiver. I don’t like Acceptance. I don’t like being able to talk about him without shedding real tears. I don’t even like writing this without having to stop multiple times prior to signing off.

Of course, I can do without the Depression piece, but the first three stages I understand. I’m still in denial some days. I’m still angry and I still wrestle with the idea that maybe we could have done more as a family to prevent this from happening (bargaining). But accepting that he’s gone and not coming back and that I need to cope with that is not a stage that I ever wanted to get used to.

I guess that leaves me with just trying to accept the Acceptance stage, which is an odd notion. This was my first step towards that.