The Journey Begins

When I think of the word journey, I think about a trip around the world or backpacking through Europe, things that take planning. You have an idea, and you make a plan so that you will have a successful journey. Often times, that’s not how life works though. Something happens, and we find ourselves on a journey that we never realized we needed to go on in the first place. God has a sense of humor like that.

That’s where I’m at now; on an unexpected journey. I was recently diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and was looking for medication management and therapy to learn strategies to help me in my work and home life. In my second therapy session, my therapist said, “Okay now take me back to your earliest memories” in an effort to work through some of my people pleasing tendencies. I said, “Oh, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, and it’s not quite a memory, but my biological dad died when my mom was pregnant with me, and I would imagine that affected me earlier than I can remember.”

As it turns out, it is still affecting me. Losing a parent before ever having a chance to meet them is not something many people can relate to. In fact, my mom searched for adults who had lost their dad before they were born to find insight when raising me and she was never able to find that person. I have lived my whole life trying to relate to others, when in reality, there was no one in my life who could truly relate to my experience. Even my brother, who was 2 at the time of our father’s death didn’t have my exact experience. He was held by John. He laughed with John. There are pictures and videos that exemplify John’s love for him. I was never able to pinpoint why I was always envious of my brother and felt like he was “the golden child” until I started this journey.

The hardest thing about this journey is that the emotions I feel regarding John’s death have been buried so long that I don’t even know exactly what I am feeling. I titled this blog Long Lost Grief because I didn’t even realize that I had all of these emotions. John’s death wasn’t something that came up very often in my everyday life.

I have realized that while everyone else shared stories and remembered John’s life when he died, I never got those stories about my dad. By the time I was old enough to understand John’s death, most of my family members had moved on or didn’t want to share stories about him in fear of bringing up sadness. When my therapist asked me what I did know about him, it made me pretty emotional. I only knew very basic facts. His birthday, July 4th. He went to Texas A&M. He played baseball. He was an orthopedic surgeon. Very surface level things that most people probably knew about him. As his daughter, I felt ashamed that I didn’t know more about him.

Ultimately, I don’t know what will help me process John’s death in a way that will make me feel like I was able to grieve the loss properly, but I guess learning more about him is a good place to start.