Loss. Pain. Grief. & the power that comes along with it.

You know when you go through something traumatic and your brain just tries to protect you and shuts off?

Your memories are fuzzy or nonexistant ?

Every year when the anniversary of my dads death circles around, I forget things I have posted….

This is one:

No one ever prepares you for losing a parent. No one prepares you for the hurt. Or the emotions you never knew you could feel.

I’ve been pretty quiet about what’s being going on in my family life and I would just like to start this out asking for respect please. I’ve been pretending I’m ok. I’ve been acting like nothing is wrong on social media. I haven’t told a lot of people. I’ve been distracting myself with things. But nothing can take away reality.

My dad had been battling a very advanced stage of liver cancer since July. My family and I have been very blessed to have a strong support system through this incredibly trying time.

My dad was an incredible man and the amount of love he had for everyone is empowering. It’s so hard to watch the strongest man you know completely disintegrate because of this sickness.

I’m going to keep this short and sweet. I just wanted to inform everyone who I wasn’t able to tell. Thank you for all the prayers and the hugs and the well wishes. We very much appreciate it.

And this. I don’t remember writing any of this:

Why

You always think it won’t happen to the ones you love. They’re good people. Healthy. Spiritual. God’s real…right?

Then why? Why do bad things happen to good people?

My father has always been a Man of God. He has spent his whole life serving, making sure that people are taken care of. Trying to make the world a better place. He taught me how to pray. He takes care of his body. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke, doesn’t do drugs, he’s healthy. He just worked a lot. He was happy.

Then he started losing weight. Losing it in the face, losing the light in his eyes. He started getting tired and feeling sick.

Then I got the call…

“Dad’s got cancer”

Those words changed everything. I froze. I collapsed. Those words were words that I never thought I would ever hear. It was in 2/3 of his liver…his liver…out of all things.

Did I not pray enough? Is dad getting punished for something that we did? I mean, I get it. We weren’t the best daughters in the world, but we weren’t awful by any means.

What about my brother? He’s barely eleven. So much more life he needs dad for. What about mom? She’s so strong, but I can’t imagine how hard this must be on her. Kaseka is the strongest one out of all of us. She’s our rock. I worry about her, but not as much. I hate that dad won’t be here to see her graduate or meet any of her future partners. I hate that he won’t meet any of our kids.

I’m just lost. How can God have such an unconditional love for his people, but he lets things like this happen to people who don’t deserve it.

 It just really makes you wonder.

  Preparation

                You can never be actually prepared for the weight of this. After all the shock wears off.

Not being able to sleep without nightmares. Not being able to do normal tasks like washing your hair. Not having an appetite. The short fuse you have with people. The overthinking that haunts you.

Why didn’t I take more pictures?

Why didn’t I say nicer things?

Why was I so stubborn?

 Why can’t this just be a dream?  There is no way this is real. This does not happen to people like my dad. MY DAD. The most patient, most compassionate, most understanding, most loving man.

It hits you. Like a bullet straight to your heart. Like a train. When you least expect it. In the car when you’re driving past a certain intersection. When you smell a certain cologne. When you see someone wearing a sweater that is almost identical to his favorite one. It is physical pain. You have trouble breathing. You can’t stop the tears. The sounds you make as you cry are almost unhuman, but you can’t seem to stop them.

 But unfortunately, life doesn’t stop. It doesn’t halt or pause because of a tragedy. It doesn’t just cater to you because this happened. Bills need paid. Pets need taken care of. The house needs cleaned. Laundry won’t do itself. And you still have to get up every day and do it. It’s called Strength. And it’s something to be proud of.

Blessings

As a Mulomede, we tend to look at the positives of things. This is one of the hard ones to find positives, but now I’m realizing it’s not.

 •My dad passed peacefully. In my mom’s arms.

 •We got closure. Me. David. Kaseka. Jeremy. We got to speak with him and tell him everything we wanted to.

•My family from France and Congo and Canada were able to make it for the service. And we got reconnected after years.

 •People from around the world came to help celebrate my dad’s life.

 •The ceremony was beautiful and it was done by friends who meant the world to my dad.

•Jeremy was able to carry my dad to his forever resting place. And that’s something that means the world to me.

 •We were able to Live Stream the service for our friends who weren’t able to make it. And now I will have it saved forever, my future kids will be able to watch the ceremony if they ever ask.

•We played dad’s song, and the second we did, the sun came out.

Even though it had been gray and dreary all day.

And that was just then. The blessings have multiplied. People are going out of their way to help my family in every way possible. There are too many blessings to count.

 It’s been so hard. And so challenging. But there’s sunshine. It’s going to be very difficult. But for now, I think I’m ok.

Remembrance

                Sometimes I think that people forget that traumas like this affect people who aren’t blood related. I think that I wish it didn’t affect people. But it does. Family friends are in mourning with us. Our friends, people who grew up with me and spent a lot of time in my house with my parents. MY boyfriend. It’s almost morbid. He has been in my family’s life very prominently for five years and he has worked hard for his relationship with my father. We’re only 22, and now he has the experience of being a pallbearer and carrying my father to his forever resting place….What an honor but also, what a heavy thing to carry on your mind and heart.  This was hard. Jeremy was like a son to him. It took a toll on him a lot too.

Experience

How sad. How sad that my friends had to try to prepare me for his death. How sad it is that they felt this same pain at a young age too. How sad they are crying with me, not because they knew dad necessarily, but because they know how my heart just hurts.

So many of my friends… I remember mourning for them when I found out about their parent, and now they’re crying for me. What a terrible club to be a part of. Dead Dad Club.

It’s funny….I mean. It’s really really not funny, but just interesting to think about.

My dad prepared me for this. Well, he tried. We didn’t know it would happen this quickly. But he would always say things since I was young. He would always say things like “Just in case I die before you get married, make sure-“ and then I would cut him off because it would upset me and I would say “Oh my God Dad, don’t say that, you know you’re going to walk me down the aisle”….Well. Jokes on me. I should have listened. It was such a fast decline. He got diagnosed in July, and then started chemo, and then died in October. You can’t prepare yourself for that.

 I never knew that at 22, I would have to help mom plan a funeral. I never wanted to have to pick out a casket. I was so ignorant, I thought obituaries wrote themselves. I didn’t realize that fell on the family as well. Just thankful my sister wasn’t in town yet to do that. Thankful my grandparents were here to help. Thankful that Jeremy could distract David so he didn’t have to hear this all.

 My mom is so strong. She kept it together because she knew we had to get stuff done. She never stopped being a mom. She made sure everyone was still taken care of. If I can, one day, even be half the woman that my mom is….I will be so grateful.

Little things

I washed my hair last night. I know that sounds ridiculous. But I hadn’t washed my hair since dad died. I just couldn’t do it. I don’t know why. I just stood there telling myself I needed to do it. But my hands wouldn’t move.

No one warns you how grief hits you randomly. In a split second. For no apparent reason. Something just triggers it. No one tells you how exhausting everyday things get. Washing your hair. Doing a load of laundry. Filling up your gas tank. It’s draining. More draining than it used to be.

But I did it. I washed my hair.

Strong

Before this happened with dad, I always wondered how people can live such happy lives and live like everything is OK after a parent’s death. It almost made me mad because I couldn’t comprehend it.

But now I get it. Life doesn’t pause after the death of a loved one. Life doesn’t stop. Or get easier. It just goes. And every day, you have to make a choice. You wake up and decide to do life to the best of your ability. It’s hard. Sometimes you get so caught up in your emotions that you forget that you need to do things for your wellbeing. It’s easier to act ok because it tricks my mind into thinking I’m okay. But it’s also ok to not be ok. I just can’t allow that to impact my life in a way where it puts my wellbeing in jeopardy. The balance is something I wasn’t preparing myself for. It’s something I’m learning slowly. It’s been a week. I’m sleeping again. I’m eating again. I’m working again. But no matter the distraction, it’s always on my mind. Dad’s always on my mind. It doesn’t go away.

So now I know that the people who were able to live their happy lives and act like things are ok after this are actually so strong. And I commend anyone who has been able to do that.

I never want to be called strong or resilient ever again in my life. This is exhausting.

My mind remembers NOTHING and it terrifies me. 2018 was a time in my life where I am missing so much memory that I try to piece things together in my mind and it drives me bananas. I went through three traumas in three days. They say it comes in threes. Everything happened so fast, three months fast. We were able to get closure, Jeremy was able to ask my dad for my hand in marriage. My dad apologized and told me he was proud of me for the first time in my life. Within three days, my big brother had a stroke, my childhood friend slaughtered his parents that were friends of my family, and my dad died.

I remember the day he died so clearly. I remember exactly how I felt and exactly how I reacted. After that, the memory is gone until late December 2018/Early January 2019. Which is how long it took for me to become self sufficient again.

There’s a lot of forgiveness in loss. Forgiving yourself. Forgiving the person you lost. Forgiving whatever high power you believe in.

Forgiveness is hard. Im bitter and Im angry. I NEVER used to feel angry or upset. You could have hit me with your car and I would have apologized for being in the way. After my dad died, I was presented a lot of feelings that I still do not fully understand. Im angry at my dad for dying. It makes no sense. He did nothing to cause it. I am angry at him for all the missed events he did not go to. He did not go to my concerts, games, graduations…He always said he would never walk me down the aisle at my wedding. His reasoning was always “I dont want to, because if I die before I have a chance to do it for your siblings, it is unfair.”

My dad knew he was going to die. I mean, LONG before his cancer diagnosis. I always felt like he had a different connection with God and always knew things that normal people wouldnt.

He wrote it in a letter. He told me he was going to die before I got married, and that is exactly what happened. He made comments constantly growing up about how I should not get upset about certain things because he was going to die before I got married or had children. We always thought he was just talking.

My dad was healthy and never drank, smoked, or did drugs. He took care of himself. Finding out he had liver cancer was a shock to everyone. My mom found out on my birthday in 2018…she chose to wait and not ruin the day. When she told me, I felt ill.

Within three months, my dad was gone. He started chemo, then suddenly I got the dreaded phone call. I remember that day so clearly. October 30 2018. I was at work. It was during dismissal from the school I work at, I had not touched my phone the entire afternoon and I felt a weird sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, so I picked up my phone. The second I did, my mom called me. I remember the horrific sound I let out that I have never heard before. I remember the reactions of my coworkers. The first thing I did was ask about my siblings, then I wiped my face, stood up, said “Thank you. Mom, I love you” and went back to work. From the second Jeremy brought me home, until about January 2019 I have no memory. I went to Toronto in December and I dont remember it. It feels like a made up scenario. Thats the stuff that freaks me out, the memory loss.

I couldnt eat, I couldnt even shower myself for weeks. Jeremy had to basically force feed me and wash me and my hair for me. I went back to work two days after the funeral. I was in autopilot. I was so sick of seeing flowers and hearing “Im sorry” or “Im praying for you” at that point.

Once I was back to being more aware of life and not in a trance, I started to take out my frustration and anger on my closest friends. I was not and am not proud of the person I was for about seven months. At this point, it still hurts. I am not over it. But, I handle it with horrific humor and therapy. It seems to be helping.

When they say power comes along with loss, I always assumed they meant positive power…. No. When youre hurting, the power you have to hurt other people is magnified by a lot and you have to be careful and aware of how you handle that power.