From Ashes to Grace

It’s now been a full year since losing my dad, and there’s still so much I have to say about living with grief. I find myself carrying grief every day. It’s not as constant and overwhelming as it was in the very beginning, but it’s still there. Sometimes loud, sometimes quiet, always a companion. There are still moments everything hits me again all at once, and it feels like I’m brought right back to that first time I heard the words, “dad’s dead”.

That day was a very dark day. I still remember how I felt when I got that initial phone call when I was at work to come home. My parents’ neighbor had called me from my mom’s cell phone, and he didn’t say why I needed to come home, just that I needed to leave right away. I told him, “I can leave now, but I’m two hours away”. He said, “I know, you need to come home now”. I knew something really bad happened, and I was terrified that my worst fear had come true.

I’ll never forget having to call my brother, who I live with, and tell him that we needed to go home now. The way he immediately panicked asking me what happened, and I had no idea. Even though deep down, I knew. He asked me over and over, “What happened?? Is dad dead?” And I had no answers to give him, just that we needed to quickly pack our things, and drive two hours home.

When I got back to my apartment is when I found my brother pacing, and he told me in a panicked voice, “Dad’s dead. Dad’s dead”. I didn’t want to know what had really happened before driving two hours, but he had to find out. I immediately felt my head starting to spin, but I needed to get in the car and drive. I didn’t really have time yet to process what I just heard. As I started throwing clothes in my bag, my brother kept asking, “Are you okay to drive??” I said, “I have to be”. So, we got in the car and headed east, the longest two hours of my life.

It was probably when we were about 15 minutes away and the “I’m so sorry for your loss” texts started to come in, which was when I first started to process what was actually happening. We pulled up to the house and walked in, all the windows were open and it was cold. I first saw my sister, and I heard my mom crying in the background. I hugged my sister in disbelief, and after a few moments, the tears started to pour out. Then I saw my mom, and we collapsed into each other’s arms as she kept yelling, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry”. “It’s not your fault”, I said to her in tears. My brothers were just sitting there and staring.

Losing a parent to suicide is a loss that most people will never experience in a lifetime. It’s a loss I still find myself every day in disbelief that this is now my story. It’s a loss that has brought me to my knees and shaken my whole world. That’s another cruel thing about grief – you can’t do anything about the cards you’ve been dealt with. You’re handed over pain and trauma you can’t rewrite, no matter how bad you don’t want this to be part of your story. It just is, and you have to learn how to keep going.

Not many people in our family’s lives knew the things that my family had been carrying behind the scenes. We attribute much of my dad’s death to his Huntington’s Disease – a genetic, neurodegenerative brain disease that is like ALS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and various mood disorders all at once. We first found out this was in our family when my grandma was diagnosed when I was about 13 – ever since then, my dad lived everyday in fear that this would one day be his fate too.

The hardest part of watching someone you love lose themselves to Huntington’s Disease, is the way it destroys their mind, their personality, their relationships, their ability to think rationally. I look back and realize how my grief really started years ago. I realize now how much it did impact me having a father who struggled so deeply with his mental health. I also realize now how there was so much he had no control over – and that’s also one of the hardest parts of loving someone with Huntington’s Disease. What parts of their struggles are themselves, unresolved trauma, or the disease?

I do forgive my dad. For everything. It was only two months before he died that he knew he had HD, and I think a lot about how for the first time, the last month of his life I carried absolutely no bitterness, anger, or impatience towards him. All of a sudden, I only felt love and compassion. I tried whatever I could to keep him here. I drove home every weekend that last month to be right by his side and make sure he was okay. I’ll never forget looking at him and seeing a broken, struggling human, who loved his family deeply but didn’t know how to show it. I’ll never forget going to church with him the week before he died, how he just sobbed next to me during the service. All I could do was wrap my arm around him, trying everything to hold back how broken and helpless I felt too. I didn’t want him to see me struggling.

I dropped him off at my parents’ house that day after service, and after he shut the car door, he turned back around and said, “Thank you for being there for me”. I lost it as soon as he walked inside the house. I’ll also never forget when I was with him and my mom at our family’s church the day before he died. He was physically there, but he wasn’t mentally or emotionally there. I kept looking over at him and noticing how anxious and dissociated he looked. After the service I walked up to him, and he just reached out and hugged me. Again, I just felt broken and helpless. There was nothing I could say or do to encourage him.

I also felt an extreme amount of anxiety for living two hours away – I think now, if I could’ve been there more, if I would’ve asked to work from home longer, would he still be here? I had felt the control slipping through my fingers and it absolutely terrified me.

That day he died. That cold, dark day. I felt my world collapse. It felt like I was watching a movie of someone else’s life, but really it was my own. You never think something like this will happen to you, until it does. I have also spent so much of my life preaching how God is our strength in hard times, how you can always find joy in the struggle when you have the Lord, how God is still good despite our circumstances and our feelings – and now, that was finally put to the test. I had been through my fair share of trials and struggles in life, but nothing like this. This was different. From now on, nothing would ever be the same.

The following weeks and months continued to feel like I was living in a nightmare. I wrestled with so many unanswered prayers and questions. I remember hearing stories shortly after of other people I knew experiencing healing and miracles, and you can’t help but ask God, “You healed them, why didn’t you come through for us?” It’s also a really strange reality how the world around you just keeps spinning, meanwhile you feel like you’re frozen in time. There were times I still chose to be social in groups of people, and you feel like you’re living behind a glass wall. Everyone around you is talking and laughing, because for them, it’s just another day. Meanwhile, you’re just trying everything you can not to fall apart.

There are also things people say to you that they think are helpful, but really feel like another stab in the heart. Maybe I’ll write another blog about what to say and not to say to someone who is grieving – but one thing I will say is to never just say, “Let me know if you need anything”, and then leave it at that. When someone’s world just fell apart, they don’t know what they need, and they’re most likely not going to tell you if they do need something. It also just feels like empty words, something people say to make them feel better, when really they are just putting the responsibility back onto your plate. If you really want to help someone who’s grieving, just show up. Bring the meal, help them clean their house, cut their grass, shovel the snow. Those are the things that meant the most to me and brought me to tears, when people would just show up – it doesn’t make what happened better, but it does relieve the burden of thinking about everyday tasks while you’re relearning how to breathe.

I’ll never forget how the church showed up for us too. I have been very passionate about the importance of church community ever since I truly experienced it myself, and the way people showed up for us was a beautiful reminder of how we as the church are called to love each other and share each other’s burdens, especially in times of tragedy. That first week after he died, my parents’ house was like an open house. People were constantly coming and going, dropping off food, keeping us company. My friends from my old church all came together one night, and we worshipped in my parents’ living room. They laid hands on us, prayed for us, sang worship songs to the Lord with us, and sat with me as I flipped through old pictures of me and my dad and my family. I had also asked a couple friends in Grand Rapids if they could feed my cat while I was gone, and when I drove back, I came back to my apartment cleaned, food in my freezer, and a gift basket including a couple pictures of me and my dad in frames, sitting on the counter. Moments like that are when grief and gratitude truly coexist. I was the most heartbroken I had ever been in my entire life, and then at the same time, I was equally as grateful for the people the Lord placed in my life so I wouldn’t have to carry this alone.

There’s still so much more I could say. It’s been over a year later, and I’m still learning how to carry grief. I can smile again, but grief is still here. I’ve also been doing my best to embrace the journey of grief, feel everything I need to feel, not feel ashamed for when I feel broken, and turn my cries in lament. What comforts me is knowing my dad is in no more pain and no more suffering. I know he knew the Lord, and that he is with Him. It just still hurts for those of us left here on earth. I never imagined my life to look like this, and I still have many unanswered questions and worries about what my future holds.

What I do know is that the Lord is still good, and His ways are higher than my own. I know that His heart also breaks when my heart breaks, and only He can put back together a heart that’s been shattered. This loss has forced me to depend on Him like no other, as I rely on His strength as my lifeline. I pray that whatever I walk through, no matter how devastating, that my life always points back to Him. I pray that in my dad’s death, the Lord be glorified. My eyes have been opened to just how hard and cruel this life can be. Don’t wait until the ceiling falls to seek Him – make Him your foundation now. He doesn’t promise us a life without suffering, but He does promise to walk with us through it. I need Him on my worst days and I need Him on my best days.

Thank you, Jesus for capturing my heart long ago. Thank you for carrying me when I couldn’t carry myself. Thank you for the good that will come out of this tragedy, even when it’s hard to see right now. All for your glory, forever and ever.

And to my dad – I will love and miss you forever.