Ambiguous Grief is Real
Coping with loss before it happens
I am waiting for my father to die. There I said it.
I recently was introduced to this psychological phenomenon: Ambiguous Grief — the idea that you can grieve someone who is still alive. It is likened to a breakup, and I know I have grieved some of the worst ones, but grieving the pending loss of a family member, in this case, my father, is a different type of grief altogether.
It is dread. But it is more than that. It is a constant waiting. A strange kind of wanting that sounds horrible if I write it or say it out loud. It isn’t that I wish he was gone. I do still love him because he is my dad.
I have been waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop for 35 years. 35! Just waiting. I used to think I was waiting for my father to come back to himself. Waiting for him to return to me. Waiting for him to return to being my dad like he was before the big breakdown. I have waited for this man for a long time. Recently I am coming to terms with the fact that he is not what I am waiting for.
What I am waiting for is for him to die. He has seemed to have been at death’s door so many times, but this has always been a really vague story. His suicide attempts and tendencies, his strange relationships, his heart attack…
