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Grief is Not a Test
I lost my dad during the pandemic and tried to fast track my grief. It didn’t work.
Grief—and I shouldn’t have to tell anyone this (though I sincerely wish I did)— is a funny thing. Not so much haha funny but more “What else can you do?” funny. It’s funny in the same way spilling Tapatio hot sauce on your blouse as you hurriedly eat a breakfast burrito in the elevator ride up to your office because the trash truck blocked your driveway is funny.
That said, I lost my father quite suddenly in March. He was a secondary casualty to the pandemic, unable to get the medical attention he required for what turned out to be a life-threatening infection. In the months following his death, I cycled through several self-invented stages of grief:
- Sleeping too much
- Starting internet fights with people who have more followers than me
- Cutting my own hair
- Overspending on Etsy
- Not sleeping at all
You know, very normal stuff.
At some point my grief and I settled into a somewhat easier relationship, though “easy” here is relative. Grief and I have the kind of relationship that you might expect to have with an unwelcome but not necessarily “bad” roommate. For the most part…
