The Long Disconnect
Like many caregivers, I started losing Dad over a period of years prior to his passing. By the time he actually died, it was hard to feel grief. I had already grieved his leaving but the guilt over not feeling something was still very disconcerting. Like so many other feelings, this one just resolved over time. I think much of the healing was in finding out how common those emotions are among caregivers.
Anger, on the other hand, was not an emotion I had anticipated this long after his passing and I really had to work at resolving it.
Surprise!
To be honest, I never really pinned down just what I was angry at him about. I just knew that I was angry at Dad several years after his death. It wasn’t any one event or any sense that I had missed out on something. I just felt anger related to him.
Dad always did the best he could with what he had at hand. We used to have talks over the years in which he expressed concern over whether he had done a good job with us kids. I always reassured him that he did well and I still feel that way to today.
So how I started feeling upset all those years later, I still don’t know. Like so many other emotions in caregiving, they just sometimes show up.
Time to work the problem.
Grabbing Hold
If anything, caregiving has given me courage. Courage to confront. Courage to engage. Courage to let go.
Dad was haunted by ghosts. Things he had done. Things that he hadn’t done. All viewed through 20/20 hindsight, he kept trying to fix the past in the present but as I know now, the past is just that. Past. The present is where the future is built. His choice however, was to keep looking back. Because I try to learn from him, even to today, I choose to put effort into what I know I can change. The things I can’t change, I let go.
Now I have talked to the dead for decades. Sometimes quiet internal conversations. Sometimes very verbal ones. I still think of myself as a balanced individual enjoying good mental health but getting ideas out of my head is sometimes very therapeutic. Especially thorny ones like these. So, over the past few years, I have had some pointed discussions with my Self and departed relatives. Conversations took place while exercising (the rhythm of cycling over the hours is a great help), odd moments during the day, or while just sitting and enjoying a quiet evening. While feeling quite organic, the important part for me was to keep the conversations going.
Arrival
I love irony and this case certainly has that flavor.
After all of the soul searching, evaluation, and deep thought, I arrived right back at forgiveness. Right where all of this process started.
I couldn’t stay mad at a dead man and I certainly couldn’t hold him accountable for things he had done over the years we had together. That was all past and besides, it was a dumb idea anyway. So I found forgiveness, not just for what he had done, but also forgiveness for how I was handling things. I still have ticklish thoughts sometimes about my actions during Dad’s declining years but at the end of the day, I have to let the past go knowing that I too did the best I could do, with what I had at the time. I can expect no more of myself than that.
Forgiveness is really about absolution: to set free. But if you look carefully at the dynamic, the one you’re setting free is yourself.”
―