Quickie Blog Post: The Dead Dads Club

I will never forget a scene from an episode of Grey's Anatomy I saw several years ago.  Hearing this short dialogue between two of the main characters was the first time I felt understood since my dad had died.  I knew then that other people knew how I felt.  Now, of course I know millions of people have lost their fathers, but I didn't have peers who had been through my experience, it felt isolating, among other things.

Christina:  "There's a club.  The Dead Dads Club. And you can't be in it until you're in it.  You can try to understand, you can sympathize.  But until you feel that loss...My dad died when I was nine.  George, I'm really sorry you had to join the club."

George:  "I...I don't know how to exist in a world where my dad doesn't."

Christina:  "Yeah, that never really changes."

Who ever wrote this part of that episode had to have been in The Dead Dads Club.  I could not believe how well it related to how I felt. I had said shorty after he died that the hardest part was that the world wasn't the same to me anymore.  He wasn't in my world, and it didn't feel OK. It was a process to learn  how to be happy in this new "world" that I didn't care for.

When I became a mother, a dear friend said "Now you are a part of the secret club of motherhood".  It was a nice feeling. I was a part of this club where everyone else in it knew that beautiful feeling of becoming a mother.  It wasn't the same with the Dead Dads Club.  It wasn't nice or beautiful. It was painful and dark. 

Over the years it evolved a bit.  It will always be a club I wish I wasn't a part of, but you don't really have a choice in the matter.  You do, however, feel a little less alone after time.  With each "member" you meet, a little light lets in.  It isn't as dark anymore.  It is a lingering sadness, but not such a prison anymore.