The gaps grief leaves: missing my Dad 33 years on

Today I miss my Dad. Heartbreakingly so. I feel an emptiness, like I have a hole in my heart or tummy. I can’t tell which, maybe it’s both.

It’s an all-consuming feeling. And the complicated thing is, my Dad passed away when I was three. I’m 36 now. I’ve only ‘properly’ grieved for him over the last year. Although I’ve missed him all my life, like a feeling that our souls are deeply connected, I’d never thought much about grieving for him. I more found it curious that I missed him so much when I didn’t really know him. I ‘only’ knew him for three years.

But as I’ve got older, I’ve grown to miss him more. I guess as you get older, you experience more in life, reach milestones, live through trauma, celebrate successes, and through all of those stages, you desperately wish for that hug from your loved one.

Today I desperately wish for that hug. That warm embrace that my heart remembers being curled up in. That feeling of infinite safety.

I don’t just grieve for my Dad as a person, I grieve for the years I’ve missed out on knowing him. I grieve for the little girl whose heart was broken at the age of three. The little girl who couldn’t identify what she was feeling. Only that the warm embrace, where she felt so safe and whole, had disappeared. Her world…my world, fell into a shadow. It became a much scarier place. I’ve only realised recently how traumatic losing a parent at such a young age is. All of the questions you are left with. All of the confusion. The gaps.

The gaps in my identity that growing up with my Dad would have filled. Without knowing him as a person, his likes, dislikes, quirks and annoyances, I struggle to work out who I am. I know how I take after my Mum. But what parts of me did I inherit from my Dad? This forms part of the emptiness in me.

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I also struggle immensely with empathy for what my Dad would have been feeling. Of knowing what he was leaving behind. This breaks my heart more than anything. And it’s a fear instilled in me, that I will also leave my two children behind while they are young. A fear I am slowly unravelling, but it’s gripped me tight for a long time. It’s deep rooted. Tangled. Suffocating.

Tapping into my inner child is a big thing for me. Inside me there is a very broken little girl. She forgot how to play without boundaries. She forgot how to love without loss. She forgot how to live without fear. She forgot how to be a child. She forgot how to be free.

So for the little girl within me, I cuddle a teddy every night. To comfort her, to make her feel safe. I colour my children’s colouring books. A simple activity that relaxes me. I play on obstacle courses with my kids at the park. I dance. I wrap my arms around myself like I’m giving myself a cuddle, while I imagine my Dad’s arms wrapping themselves around me. This gives me the most comfort.

I know I will always feel heartbreak when I think about my Dad. I know many more tears will fall. But I hope that will make me lighter, be able to live a bit freer. As no matter what, I know he’s always with me. He’s in my heart. And onwards we will go together.

That is where I had planned to finish. But… I’ve been to listening to music while I’ve been writing this, and as I was proof-reading it, the song ‘Don’t you worry Child’ came on by Swedish House Mafia. I’ve never listened to the lyrics. The song starts ‘There was a time, I used to look into my father’s eyes, in a happy home…’, ‘Those days are gone, now the memories are on the wall’. And the chorus ‘My father said, don’t you worry, don’t you worry child, heavens got a plan for you’.

And it’s in moments like these that our souls connect.

Together.