E22: Anxious About Father's Day...While Grieving a Loss?

Welcome to this mid-week episode!

As we're inching closer to Father's Day (Sunday, June 16, 2024), I thought it would be helpful to address the elephant in the room when it comes to our experience as loss dads.

Here are some tips to implement:

1. Keep an open mind. The story you're creating in your head about how the day will turn out is simply a narrative you're creating in your head. The actual day may turn out to be just fine.

2. Allow yourself to feel what you're feeling in the moment on Father's Day, whatever those emotions may be.

3. Be honest with yourself and those around you, and make your feelings known.

I hope these tips are helpful.

Sincerely,
Kelly

Background Music: "Miss You" by Middle Child
License: CC BY-NC 4.0 Deed Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
Breakingcopyright.com

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:12

So Father's Day is around the corner and you are asking yourself how am I going to get through this day? How am I going to deal with all of the posts on social media celebrating fathers? How am I going to deal with people saying happy father's day to friends and family? How am I going to muster the energy to even say happy father's day to my own father or father figure? How am I going to receive the well-intended gestures of other people who see me as a father figure and they want to give me a greeting card or a gift card, or yet another sock or yet another tie, or treat me to brunch or do something to show their appreciation for a role that I play in their lives? All the while I am struggling with my loss, all the while I am struggling with how come I just can't be a father to living children, just like everybody else who's getting celebrated today, and let me just acknowledge that, if that is you, what you are feeling and experiencing doesn't make you crazy. It doesn't mean that you are a bad person because you're just not finding the excitement. You're just not finding what's worth celebrating. Why should you want to celebrate when, at the end of the day. All you want to be is a father. Yet here you are bearing the weight of a miscarriage, whether it be the first time or a repeat time, or whether you've lost a child in any other unfortunate way. So then, what do you do? How can you then prep yourself, if possible, to make it through Father's Day? How can you prep yourself to endure, to deal with? How can you prep yourself to endure, to deal with, to even wake up on Sunday and walk out into the world and deal with the many things that may come your way?

Speaker 2: 2:37

One very helpful piece of advice that I got from other lost dads is that it's important for you to realize that the buildup to Father's Day can potentially be worse than the actual day itself. It's one thing to sit at home and labor over how am I going to deal with all of these different things, and that doesn't make you crazy. That doesn't mean that you are losing your mind or you are not in touch with. It doesn't mean any of that stuff. It doesn't mean that you are losing your mind or you are not in touch with. It doesn't mean any of that stuff. It doesn't mean anything that anyone may want to tell you that it means, or maybe that you yourself want to tell yourself that it means. It doesn't mean that what it means is that deep down inside, you are hurting. What it means is that deep down inside, what it means is that deep down inside you want to be a dad and you are struggling to be happy in a moment, in a day that brings it right up to your face the very devastating and real and painful loss that you've experienced or that you are experiencing. That's the only thing that that means.

Speaker 2: 3:45

So just keep in mind that, as you are inching closer to Father's Day, the thoughts that you have in your mind may actually be creating a hyper reality that may not actually turn out to be the case on the actual Father's Day. I'm not telling you to stop thinking. I'm not telling you to pretend like it's not a thing. I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is be aware of your thought process and be aware of your thought patterns. Be open to the possibility that perhaps some of the things that you are anticipating may not even come to be and that the actual day itself may just turn out to be another day, may just turn out to be another day. So just be open to that possibility. Just be open to that perspective as you are trying to figure out how to best prepare yourself for Father's Day.

Speaker 2: 4:45

The other thing is just be mindful of what your needs are. What is it that you need in that moment, on that day, on Father's Day? Do you need to be by yourself? Be by yourself. Do you need to excuse yourself from an activity that you thought you were able to handle and it would be fine and you made the right decision to go? But then, now that you're there and seeing the things that you're seeing and being in the atmosphere that you're in, you're just realizing. You know what this is not for me. Then it's okay for you to leave.

Speaker 2: 5:23

Being honest with yourself and with those around you is the compass that can help you navigate Father's Day in a way that will both safeguard your own feelings and also allow you the space and the time that you need in order to process through whatever emotions you're feeling at that time. So don't try to anticipate what Father's Day will be like and when you get to Father's Day, just being mindful and aware of what are you feeling in the moment. What do you need to cope with this right now? Can you tolerate what you're feeling or do you need to remove yourself and, as you're processing through all of those things internally, having the confidence that is within your rights, to say to those around you, whether it's your partner, whether it's your own dad, a friend, a brother, a neighbor, hey, I just need to step away for a second or I've changed my mind. I think I'm just going to go and excuse yourself without even giving anyone a reason why. Now, if you are so emboldened to do I encourage you.

Speaker 2: 6:41

If you find it within yourself, especially if you have not opened up to anyone yet about your loss, it is absolutely okay for you to use Father's Day as a catalyst to open that avenue of communication with someone who you trust. Hey, you know what? Today's a difficult day for me because of this loss that I experienced, and I know that you weren't aware of this and I know that your invitation to this event, or you giving me this card, or you giving me this gift card, came from a good place, because you see me as a father figure, and I thank you for that, or you see me as whatever the label is, and also I want you to know what I'm going through, and I'm bringing that to you not to make you feel bad, because it's never about making the other person feel bad, but it's about raising awareness, and so I'm bringing this to your attention so that you are aware that, on a day where everyone is supposed to celebrate fathers who have living children, there are those of us within your community who have experienced loss, and this day means something slightly different for us. So if you are so emboldened to do that, I certainly encourage you to use Father's Day as that platform to bring awareness to your experience and to those who have experienced a similar trauma and loss as you. Lastly this is what I'm going to say Just because you do not yet have a living child doesn't mean that you are any less of a father than your buddy who has living children, because the fact of the matter is, you too have children or a child, depending on how many miscarriages you've experienced.

Speaker 2: 8:44

If they weren't your children, it wouldn't hurt so much. The fact that it hurts is proof that you've lost a child, and if you've lost a child, that means that you are a father. And so it may not feel that way, because it's easier to see the one-to-one correlation between father and child. But let me encourage you and provide this perspective you, too, are a dad. You are a dad, just like I'm a dad, and if you've been struggling and if you've experienced a devastating loss after a devastating loss, it doesn't matter how many losses you've experienced. You are a father, and that aspect of you, that part of who you are, also needs to be acknowledged. And so I'm acknowledging that about you at this very moment. I am so sorry and I am so devastated that you are not celebrating in the way that everybody else around you seems to be celebrating. But there is something about you, there's something in you that is hurting, and it's hurting because you care. It's hurting because you want to be a father. It's hurting because you are a father.

Speaker 2: 10:15

So the challenge to you is in what ways can you make Father's Day something unique for yourself and those like you? How can you learn to celebrate Father's Day? And if celebrate is the wrong word, how can you learn to commemorate, to honor, to bring to life in a unique way your child or the children when you've lost? And how can you use Father's Day, that particular day, as a day to do that? How can you bring purpose into your pain. How can you revive the life of your children that's been cut so short so prematurely and has left you reeling? So maybe happy Father's Day is not the appropriate thing to say to you on Father's Day, but by no means does that make you less of a father on Father's Day, but by no means does that make you less of a father. And so I see you.

Speaker 1: 11:58

I acknowledge you and I don't know if it's appropriate, I celebrate you as well. I'm going to go ahead and do that, so now. I love you.