How Grief Is Changing the Way I See Myself
It’s hard to say goodbye to a loved one…but with that comes the opportunity to also say goodbye to who we think we are
I used to be somebody’s daughter. I never thought much about how deeply my identity was built upon that fact. Not until my father died, that is, and suddenly, I didn’t feel so much like a daughter anymore.
The last two months have been a strange undoing — and not just as that pertains to the undoing of my father’s presence in this world. That undoing has stretched its long tentacles all the way into my own life, upending assumptions, inviting the uncertain, and creating a whole lot of questions.
One of the most surprising ways this has manifested is in the moments that I can only call a deep forgetting. Not a forgetting that my father is gone. No, this is a different kind of forgetting altogether.
In these moments, I might surge with optimism about a professional opportunity. I might consider trying a long, hard hike that’s more challenging than anything I’ve ever tried before. It even happens when I find myself at a new lake, all by myself, hopping onto my paddle board to navigate waters that are 200 feet deep, something I never would have even attempted a year ago.
