Category Archives: Loss

May 15, 2012 · 10:45 am

The first time I told my dad I’d just had an abortion

It was last Christmas Eve. I arrived at my dad’s house in the afternoon having found out I was pregnant four days earlier, gone to a doctor, had an ultrasound and started the course for a medical abortion three days earlier and gone through the actual purging the day before. You can find that story here.

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Now, I walked into a home just concluding lunch: my step-mum clearing up, my brother and my sister-in-law lounging in the sun, my four-year-old-nephew, shirtless, undertaking the very important task of holding nails in his pockets while my dad, equally shirtless, was up a ladder nailing some shade cloth over several beams for more coolth around the outside eating table.

I felt empty in my abdomen. I felt like I should feel different, not really sure how though. I was grateful for my snug denim shorts muffling the big old sanitary pad in my underwear which stuck to my inner thigh, made a plasticky sound and felt like it stuck out behind me like a surfboard.

I had a chat with the family, not quite feeling like the same person I was last time I saw them. Then I hopped up the ladder and helped my dad nail the shade cloth, each of us pulling the fabric taut at opposite ends. By the time we were done my nephew and his parents were fading and retreated from the afternoon sun for a nap. My step-mum was off in the kitchen. I decided that this was my moment; I didn’t want to go through Christmas with this though on my heart.

“Dad, can I talk to you. Alone?”
“Sure love, shall we go sit under the tree?”
“Ja, okay.”

We strolled across the little lawn to the white, cast-iron table and four chairs. As we were sitting down I said:

“Okay there are some rules to this conversation. 1: You can’t interrupt me, I just want you to listen. 2: You’re not allowed to shout, but you can hug me afterwards if you want.”

Grinning, my dad responded, “Okay.”

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To which I replied “Oooh, you’re not going to like this.”

I don’t remember the moment before I said the words but I can see the moment afterwards clearly, even now.

“Four days ago, I found out I was pregnant. I’m not anymore.”

The words bore straight to his centre and his face went lax. Suddenly he looked like an old man, not my dad. His eyes seemed to collapse with concern and the want to protect, letting the tears rise. I started babbling:

“I did it the best way, I promise, it was safe and I did all the tests and I’m healthy and it’s finished now and I found out really early. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, I didn’t want to seem like a knocked up teenager wanting money or anything. I’m sorry dad, I’m so sorry…”

I don’t remember the movement but I was standing hugging him tightly, and he was saying:

“You brave, brave girl.”

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July 15, 2011 · 8:56 am

The First Time I lost my best friend

I only met my best friend when I was in my mid-twenties.  We met, just clicked, and in no time were inseparable. We shared each other’s joys, heartaches, crushes, breakups, tears, considered each other the one other person in the world who would always understand. Although we spoke over the phone or e-mailed each other throughout the day with exciting updates on random happenings, we still met up almost each day. I could not picture a life without her – honestly, the thought never crossed my mind.

After years of having an irreplaceable confidant, she became enamored with one of those guys, we all know one of them – the ones who can tell a woman likes him and strings her along, manipulates her and uses her without ever actually promising anything.

The strangest thing though, mere days after she met him, when I told her what I thought he was doing she yelled at me.  Of course after so many years we’ve had fights and disagreements but nothing like this.

As the days went by I saw less and less of her.  She became closer and closer to him and I became less and less important to her.  She lost her temper with me more often, became dismissive of me and sometimes, simply ignored me while sitting in my living room chatting to him.

Within a month of knowing him my birthday came up.  We have, for as long as we’d known each other, spent the night before our birthdays together and celebrated atmidnight.  But that year it changed.  No plans were made.  She had discarded our tradition to go partying with him.  I felt like she had discarded more than a tradition, she really had discarded me.

By the time she had known him for two months, she simply broke off our friendship.  No reason and no warning.   I accepted it, but I hated her for it.

A few months later she realised what kind of person he was, and was coming over for visits again, chatting, e-mailing, calling.  We never discussed what happened or why. We tried to plaster over the holes and cracks in our relationship, pretended it was fine, but it kept falling apart.  I lashed out viscously whenever I lost my temper over some insignificant thing and went straight for the jugular, so much so that I shocked myself.  I realised then how cruel I could be, how hurt I actually was.

We just had another argument recently – again about one of those guys she’s known for a few weeks and is doing what one of those guys does, I don’t know if we’ll talk again, if it’s even worth it.  I’ve lost my best friend and it breaks my heart.

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April 19, 2011 · 11:02 am

The First Time I realized I would never see my Daddys face again

I hate rainy afternoons. I think they remind me of the day my Aunt and her husband drove me home to meet the most heart scraping pain ever inflicted upon my life. The day I was told my Daddy died…

I still remember odd scenes from that day. The way the rain splattered shy rain drops on my aunts white car. The way the trees seemed to tremble when the wind touched their dripping leaves and how as a seven year old, they seemed too big for my eyes to swallow all at once. Certain moments from that day seem to have been lost except that time when I was sitting near to the T.V. unaware that my life was about change forever. I did not notice my aunt walk up to me so all I heard was a careful whisper in my ear saying “your father died today”. Whispered in the same way a girl might whisper to her best friend “I like the colour you dyed your hair”. The same way a lover might whisper “I really had fun today” after an amazing date.

I couldn’t move for a few seconds…and when I did the only place I could find solace in, were the bathroom floor tiles. My young life felt like a cruel dream and has ever since felt like that almost too often to smile about. I did not understand what the death of my Daddy really meant but all my mind kept telling me was “you will never see his face again”. The days that followed were a mist between being held by family and sudden realizations that for the rest of my life I would not ever see my father’s face again.

I cannot remember much about my father’s funeral except my sister’s hysterical cries from his graveside. But I do remember sitting on my mother’s lap and looking at his coffin thinking “they didn’t let me even see his face for the last time”. After his funeral, I remember having vivid dreams where he was weak and begging me to help him… and the pain always hit the hardest when I woke up.

I was seven years old. How do you mourn the death of your father at seven years old? I didn’t. Somehow I convinced myself that life is not this cruel and someday he will return. It has been fifteen years since his death and he hasn’t returned. I now have to face the fact that he is not ever coming back to me and have to start my mourning process. I do not how I will begin to make sense of my life without the hope I had been harbouring for fifteen years: just to see his face again.

How do I move on? How do I deal with the pain that threatens to destroy every good moment in my life? How do I make the little girl in me understand that Daddy did not walk out her life on purpose? How do I stop the irrational fear of feeling unlovable and constantly panicking that people will walk out of my life? How do deal with my denial that has kept me sane for fifteen years? How do I live knowing I will never see my Daddy’s face again?

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