Delayed grief or acceptance?

[chessterbester]

My father has been ill for as long as I can remember. He was finally diagnosed with stage 3 Multiple Myeloma (the MM staging system is different than a lot of cancers, it is pretty much stage 4) on May 12, 2002 when I was sixteen years old. He was severely disabled from that point on. He was constantly on chemo or radiation, received a bone marrow transplant, and at the time of diagnosis he already had pathological fractures in every bone in his body. I worked full time in high school at a diner, mostly nights, went to school and graduated with honors, and was his caretaker (mom and I worked in 'shifts' to keep us above water). Once I started college, I lived four hours away, and the semesters that he was in really bad shape, I drove back and forth to make it between the hospital/home and classes/work. He survived to see me graduate from high school and to give me away on my wedding day. Both which I will be eternally grateful for. However, we came home early from our honeymoon because his condition was declining. He was delusional, and his liver and gall bladder had failed. The cancer was spreading at a remarkable rate and there was nothing they could do to fight it. He was in agony for about two and a half weeks before he died on July 7th at 2:45 in the morning. My husband and I had to move to Pittsburgh the weekend before he passed. I had to start my new job that day, and went home Thursday night for the funeral.
During the last stages of his illness, I didn't cry. I still haven't cried. I haven't felt overwhelming grief, not like I was expecting. Part of me feels like I have grieved for my father for six years, I have grieved for the loss of my youth, I have grieved, I have sobbed for hours over this disease. But his death...I just feel detached from. Everyone thinks it is so weird, and I didn't see anything wrong with it, just different until they started making comments and questioning my devotion and love for my dad. I would have gone to the ends of the earth, I would have done anything if it would have just given him one single pain free year. But at the end of the day, there are things worst than death and the place where he was laying in that hospital bed was worst. Am I wrong for feeling like this? For being okay with it? Is it going to hit me later that my dad is gone?

I have had a lot of loss in my life, my best friend in middle school drowned, my uncle who did all the 'dad' things my dad couldn't had a heart attack last year which left me devistated, i was my grandma's care taker after her stroke and cancer diagonsis for an entire summer before she died when I was fifteen, my cousin was hit by a car, two others have died of cancer. My godfather has stage four small cell lung cancer which has now metastisized so we may be losing him very soon. All of these have brought me to my knees...
Why not my daddy?

Any advice or wisdom from others in grief would be very much appreciated.

 

[PastorGadget]

During the last stages of his illness, I didn't cry. I still haven't cried. I haven't felt overwhelming grief, not like I was expecting. Part of me feels like I have grieved for my father for six years, I have grieved for the loss of my youth, I have grieved, I have sobbed for hours over this disease. But his death...I just feel detached from. Everyone thinks it is so weird, and I didn't see anything wrong with it, just different until they started making comments and questioning my devotion and love for my dad. ... Am I wrong for feeling like this? For being okay with it? Is it going to hit me later that my dad is gone?

... All of these have brought me to my knees...
Why not my daddy?

Any advice or wisdom from others in grief would be very much appreciated.

Dear chessterbester, there is nothing wrong with you at all. First of all, as you mention, you have spent the last six years of your life grieving for your father, grieving the loss of your teen years, the loss of that vitality that marked your father before. In many ways, you were ready for this day, and although it hurts, it is not like you haven't been grieving all along. You plainly love your father, so don't beat yourself up over this.

Another thing is that grief doesn't behave like many of our other emotional reactions. When we love, we love right away; when we get angry, we get angry right away. But when a part of our life is taken away, our minds and hearts all process things differently. We grieve at different speeds and in different ways. The fact that you have come here tells me that you are grieving, that you want to tell his story and yours and find comfort. You really do hurt, just like others in your family. Perhaps other traumas have "prepared" you for this, perhaps not. As everyone reminds me, and as I have read in so many other cases: Give it time.

Some say time heals all wounds. I'm not exactly sure that's true, but time does give us the opportunity to experience pain and sorrow when we are ready. And we are never fully healed in this lifetime of all the suffering we face, but we are always healing. Tomorrow, next week, two months from now, you will have a day when memories will come rushing back to you, and you will lean on your husband and family like never before. And that's okay, too. Several years from now, a happy/sad memory will give you the blues for a week, and then it will be gone and you'll be fine. That's normal, it's human.

One thing you do have now is the perspective to know that time is very precious, especially time with loved ones. Don't fret about not mourning right now, and don't fight it either. Just keep going, hold close to your husband and your family, and enjoy your life. I'm sure your father would want your life to count for something, so live for him. Grieving will come in its own time as you are ready.

May your life be blessed with great joy,
Pastor Gadget

 

[NostalgicGranny]

I agree with PastorGadget. Everyone grieves in their own time and way. And just because you grieve differently for one person than you do for another doesn't mean that you didn't care as much for one as you did the other.

When I was a little girl my Grandpa passed away. I was numb for several months. Then one day I was sitting at the top of the stairs and realized that he was gone. Several months had passed, and yet there I was crying for my grandpa. No one understood it.

Years later when my brother died it hit me immediately and hard.

Last June when my mom died, I was numb at first. It took me an hour or two before the tears came.

I loved all three a great deal, but my heart and my mind grieved completely different for each one. That's why I say there is no right or wrong way to grieve. Grieving should be a natural process, so don't worry about how others want you to react, just let it come in whatever way is natural to you.