Dealing with Death, Losing my Dad | Noah’s Story

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So dad came up today in group. We have these daily readings, and the one today talked about death and how you deal with it.

The reading talked about facing a crisis, specifically the death of someone close to you, the grief you feel, and the urge to run and hide from those emotions as they arise. The person reading had just lost his mother a few weeks back, so I am sure it hit him hard, and of course the emotions started to conjure inside me as I started to think about a wound that is almost 12 years old now, but when reopened it feels like just yesterday.

 

When I wrote the first post about my dad, it was because my sister brought up a question…about how much I think my dad’s passing had an impact on the life I chose to live?

At first, I just agreed to write about my dad more-so because she said it helped her when she wrote about him, and less so that I actually thought his passing was the reason I ended up coming to jail.

But the more I think about it, and the more I talk about it, I realize how badly I handled my dad’s passing, by running from those emotions.

If you were in my life in 2007 and didn’t know my immediate family, you wouldn’t have even known my dad passed.

Just ask my buddy, Sam. He confronted me a couple of years after my dad’s passing about the fact that I didn’t even tell him when it happened. To be honest, I guess I just thought I could figure it out on my own, just like so many other life choices that I made, and completely failed on.

I thought to cry in front of people or asking for help was for the weak, and I didn’t realize at the time how scared and sad I was. 

I still finished college 14 months later, because I knew that’s what he would have wanted. But over those months, I had only continued to spiral further out of control, because I wasn’t taking care of myself.

Now I am sitting in prison 12 years later finally learning how to talk about it. I am sharing how I feel with people in the group, guys in my room, my family on the phone, and of course, with you guys through my weekly letters.

A guy said to me the other day, “who would have thought I would come to prison and learn how to share my emotions.” And I don’t think I heard a statement all week that I could relate more to than that one.

I often wonder what life would have been like if I would have handled this problem differently. Would I have still made the same mistakes? Would I be where I am today?

I guess I just need to have a little faith and believe that I am just right where I needed to be today. Life definitely works in mysterious ways.

So if you’ve lost someone that you love, I encourage you to just simply talk or write about it despite how many days, months or years it’s been. Whether that’s yourself, family, friends or even a complete stranger. Because that’s where the real healing begins despite if the pain never fully goes away.

And it’s ok to cry too. 

Thanks for listening!
Noah