The Dad-Daughter Connection
My bond and connection with my Dad was the closest connection that I’ve ever had, with the connection to my Grandmother being a close second. It was a bond that I never questioned and that always prevailed. There was no person who could come between myself and my father.
This bond was never something that I needed to examine — it was never something that I was curious about. It was just a constant. From birth, my Dad was my preferred human being, my only language, my confidant, and my best friend. If I wasn’t hanging around this man, then I was crying until the next time that I could. My Dad has always been the center of my universe, and he always will be.
Many will try to explain this away with a concept as simple as a Freudian/Jungian Electra Complex, which, for shame! This complex posits that, during the 3-6 year old developmental phase a young girl will have competition with her mother for the love and affection of her father.
But, by this unsubstantiated concept, one would essentially move past this developmental stage and reconcile these feelings with said growth. Again, I’ve never grown out of the closeness or attachment to my father, and said attachment was never one like that described in this oddly formed developmental phase (having not discussed all of the phases nuances or the ways that it’s been dispelled in other research).
So then what is it?
Grief — A nasty little bugger that hits us all at some point.
There’s nothing that prepares you for these feelings. Not the time spent in therapy as a patient; not the time spent in therapy as a therapist; not the tough days in law school or the devastatingly difficult years after; no tests; no exams; no story; no manuscript; no writing or training or failing matters nor prepares you for losing what feels like everything — your everything. Your favorite person…
And all of that remains true. My dad was there with me through everything listed above and then some. He stood behind me with all the faith in the world that my wildest dreams, and they’ve been wild, would come true… Never with a judgment or a nay to say. My dad was truly different, dare I say he was better than the vast majority of human beings.
To lose such a staple of a man is deeper than an exposed cut, it’s like a million slices to every part of your body that attempt to heal at different and slower paces than the others. You’re left picking at countless wounds that, fast forward, will never heal.
This past month and two weeks have been the hardest of my life. I haven’t heard his unique voice — that voice of reason. I haven’t bugged him, hugged him, hung on his arm or yelled his name while waltzing through his front door. I haven’t been able to do any of that.
And living in America is so weird because I can’t do most of the things that my mind and body tell me to do.
I can’t curl up in a ball and cry when needed because societally that may get me marched away
I can’t hole up in my home and wait out the pain because financially I’d be in ruins if I don’t at least try to show up to work daily
Emotionally I have to appear stoic because it’s literally my job to meet my patients on their worse days and get them to better days, my days don’t matter at all
It’s weird here. It’s weird grieving here. Lord knows we can’t all afford an Eat, Pray, Love around the world to find ourselves and grieve properly so we’re stuck here hoping that our routines get us to a working baseline. The road is long…
Most days I can’t get up to get to work on time. My usual schedule of waking up and heading straight for the gym hasn’t been a schedule at all. I dread everything and every place that is not my couch or my bed. All of my days are filled with stress and worry and sadness — it’s a true, living misery. But I am getting up, showing up and even smiling because that’s the gig.
We say that we carry on because it’s what our loved ones would want but I can tell you that my dad wanted to live. He wanted more holidays with the family and FOOD. He wanted more disappointing Cowboys games. And he certainly wanted more time with his dog. He wanted to live. Oh but, cancer…
My relationship with my dad was incomparable, inimitable, and enormous in its simplicity — we just adored each other. It’s never been a relationship that I had questions about. He was never not on my side, but now that he’s gone, I find myself asking questions as if another bond in this life could come close to the hole left by this one’s absence.
I now wonder if loving and becoming a parent aren’t actually the antithesis of everything I’ve believed them to be up until now. Loving my dad and acknowledging how big that love was simply makes me want to create an equally enormous love — it’s the oddest thing, but possibly the only thing keeping me going at this point.
The idea that in this world that has an ability to feel large enough to swallow you whole but also small enough to box you in, one could find love that breathes a better meaning into everything. It’s the only thing keeping me going and it’s the exact relationship that I shared with my dad, one of nothing but pure, unfiltered and overflowing love.
My dad’s body may be at rest but he is with me everywhere that I go — hoo-riding like we always do (my roaddawg for eternity).
Best [healing],
Bree 💙
