“Grief, I’ve learned, is really love. It’s all the love you want to give but cannot give. The more you loved someone, the more you grieve. All of that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes and in that part of your chest that gets empty and hollow feeling. The happiness of love turns to sadness when unspent. Grief is just love with no place to go.” -Jamie Anderson

I can’t believe I’ve lived a whole year without my dad. I feared his death everyday for as long as I can remember. The fear of living without him was overwhelming. The last five years of his life we were together all of the time. Caregiving for him was the number one priority. I changed my life completely to spend as much time with him as possible. What would my life look like without him? I just could not imagine it.

It took me three weeks to tell anyone, but my closest friends, that he had died. I have been through enough tough shit, I knew it was important to feel everything. Fully experience every emotion that came up. I gave myself one month to be as sad as I could muster. There was no time limit on my grief, but the devastating sadness needed a limit. It’s not sustainable or wise to be super sad indefinitely.

The first three weeks consisted of reminding myself every 15-20 mins that he had died. I had a hard time believing it had actually happened. I had to picture what he looked like, the grey color of his skin, his purple ear. I had to force myself to remember how cold and tight his skin felt. When it finally felt real, I finished writing his obit and put it out into the world. The last week of my self-appointed month of grief, was spent crying. I think I cried a years worth of tears, but every day I felt a little tiny bit better.

After the month was over, it was still incredibly hard to talk about him and not cry. So I cried. I just let myself express the feelings and didn’t push them down. I thought I would cry every time I talked about him forever. Then an unexpected thing happened, I stopped crying. I mean every once and awhile I will cry over him but most of the time I can think about or talk about him and not cry. I could laugh at a silly memory and I was filled with love, not total sadness. I can’t tell you how important it was to take that time and really let my feelings flow.

The hardest times for me now are when something outrageous happens. I want to tell him and hear him laugh. I miss his ridiculous take on everything. I miss laughing really hard with him, the kind of laughing where you can’t catch your breath. We laughed like that everyday together. I realize now how unusual that was. How unique and special it was to have that witty banter every single day. I laugh now when something is funny, but it is not with the same intensity. In the last year, I can count on one hand the times I’ve laughed that hard. It is my goal and intention to laugh more. To encourage relationships with people who bring that out in me.

I wrote in his obit that living my life would keep him alive, we are so similar you get to see him when you see me. I had no idea how true that would be. It surprises me all of the time. A wacky phrase, seeing my hand reach for something, or when I have a bitchy attitude; he’s there.

One day at the nursing home, the commercial for Kind granola bars came on. It says something about the difference between nice and kind. I asked him,”Do you think you are nice?”  Without hesitation, he said, “I’m honest.” I have thought about that a million times since. He was honest and not nice. Not nice at all. We would fight fiercely over things he said to me or other people that were rude. A few times over the years, I thought about cutting off contact with him because of the rude things he would say or do. He wouldn’t back down and neither would I. We would talk it out and eventually move through it. We didn’t always agree or see each other’s point of view but we kept talking. I see now that we worked really hard at being completely honest with each other, even when the easier option would be to lie. He taught me to speak my mind and stand up for what I think is right, no matter the cost. He gave me the confidence to be completely myself. He gave me that confidence in multiple ways. He was the best hype man, he really thought I was the most beautiful, smartest, funniest person and he told me constantly. He also gave me confidence by letting me argue with him and by openly disagreeing with me. He always treated me like an equal. He was ok with me thinking he was an asshole sometimes because it was honest. He was unapologetically himself and it gave me the freedom to be myself.

I’m still learning and uncovering life lessons from him. I’m thankful I took so many videos of him and wrote down his weird #popquotes there are hidden gems in all of it.

I started this post with a quote by Jamie Anderson. “Grief is just love with no place to go.” I was lucky to have love from my dad that was honest and steadfast. When he died that love was gone too. It cuts so deep and feels like it would be easier to not love anyone again. To keep it close and withhold my heart from people. That unspent love needs to go somewhere. I have an unending amount of that love to give and to receive. I feel closest to my dad when I love, when I’m radically honest, and when I laugh. My intention is to bring how he loved me to others.