Telling His Story

Sometimes writing about my dad makes me feel like I am betraying him. He never wanted people to know his story, so why do I have the right to share it? He was astonishingly good at hiding his “inner demons” from others. Of course he was. Why would you want people to see your flaws? None of us want that, but we all have our flaws. His story is my story, and as much as he needed to hide it, I need to shout it out loud. His story intertwined with mine the day my parents brought me into this world. 

His story broke me, picked me back up, tossed me around over and over. So I need to keep reminding myself it’s okay. I don’t want to hide anything, and I shouldn’t have to. Still doesn’t mean that I don’t get scared to tell his part, the parts he wanted hidden, and shit, I wanted them hidden too. Who could really blame him?

I’ll never know because you can’t ask permission when that person isn’t here anymore. I was able to get my mom’s permission, my brother’s permission, and those alone mean a lot.

He may not want his story known, but it’s also my story to tell because of the off and on again craziness of it all; it affected me. I was continually depressed, beyond angry, and made bad decisions. Looking back some of my reactions were above and beyond, but I was a teenager. No teenage brain can think rationally. We react with that “nothing can touch me” attitude. 

The aftermath of my dad’s death left me riddled with anxiety and depression. I’m still working out how to be confident in my own body, and learning how to take care of myself instead of constantly having to worry about him. I’m in therapy and with therapy comes a certain awakening of why I feel the way I do. That it’s okay to be upset and angry, but to find ways to work through it. No person is perfect. 

Some may think this isn’t my story to share, but it’s just as much mine as it is his because this is from MY point of view, MY feelings, and MY way of coping with all that’s happened. He took that choice away from himself. So yes, I’ll feel guilty here and there with the telling of our stories. But I think I’ll also feel a little less burdened by letting them out. He was a great man and a lot of the time an amazing father, friend, son, brother, husband, uncle and more. 

It’s hard to want to share these thoughts with anyone. I am also learning that if you hold it in, it will only do more damage, and you won’t even notice it’s happening. The more you hold onto anger, sadness, death and more, the more it eats at you. I’m learning its okay to let what happened out, that by letting out some of the anger I can start to let it fade.

The more I write the more I can let go.