The Mix of Grief and Gratitude
“Do you think the wrong parent died?”
Listening to comedian Lil Rel share that question from his therapy session immediately took me back to the sad little girl who felt unloved and unwanted and forgotten.
My parents were teenagers when I was born. The sense I get is that the pregnancy threw my mother’s plans off track but was welcomed by my father. He loved her and he loved me.
I don’t question that he loved me. He was murdered when I was 14 months old, but in my soul, I know that he loved me. When people tell stories about him and how he was with me, I feel his love.
My mother never talked about my father until this one day we were riding in the car and turning onto the highway. The song “Brickhouse” came on and she said, “your dad used to sing this song to me.” I was about 15 o 15 years old.
She had no clue about the cataclysmic shift that happened in me. Outwardly, I didn’t react. Inwardly, I was elated because up until then I thought she hated my father so in turn hated me.
To accommodate her hate for me, I would try to stay hidden in the background. I diminished. I would do things to make myself less of a burden. I didn’t ask for much. Outloud.
But, oh, the fantasies I would make up in my head.
My mom used to watch soap operas around the time I was nine or ten. When someone dies in a soap opera, it’s never a sure thing or you find out it was their unknown twin who had taken their identity.
In my fantasies, my dad was alive somewhere. He had amnesia. Or he was in the witness protection program and had to leave me but was working on a way to get to me.
In some of my fantasies, my mom was the one who died and I was with my father.
That feels horrible to say, I know. So I have never uttered those words to anyone.
And it’s not that I hate my mom. We have grown to have a solid relationship and I am grateful for the life she created for our family.
I am in awe of the strength it took to navigate through the circumstances she was given.
But, listening to Lil Rel speak that question and share his grief made me face my own. Forty-plus years later, I still grieve the loss of a father I never got to know. I still miss the love I never got to experience from him.
As I listened and considered and felt the loss, I cried for that little girl who misses her daddy. I cried for that little girl who felt both fatherless and motherless.
I cried for my teenage girl who found the body of her dead husband. The woman-child left to raise a child and build a life alone.
In my moment of grief, I also make room for acceptance and gratitude.
Acceptance of what is. My father is not coming back. Acceptance that parts of my childhood were hard. Acceptance that my mother and I may never have the warm-fuzzy relationship I desire.
And finally, gratitude.
Though this moment rekindled grief, it gave me the space to remember my father. It gave me the space to empathize with my mother and all that she must have felt. It gave me the space to appreciate all the decisions and circumstances that led to this life that I get to live.
Jenita Lawal is a writer, certified professional coach, traveler, entrepreneur, and mother. After 20+ years of living the American Dream, she sold everything and packed her suitcases to pursue the life of her dreams. She lives abroad in Mexico with her three teenage sons and loves exploring whenever there’s an opportunity. Connect with Jenita here.
