Marking the Milestones: My Dad Died Three Years Ago Today

• Beginning to “remember without pain”

Original image: Ayden Sutton on Unsplash.

In March, 2022, I had this dream with my Dad which felt very real, like a visitation:

• Walking along a green, grassy road, I was talking with my Dad on my cellphone. It was so clearly his voice. He said, “I’m over here with my family.”

In the dream, I knew that it was my Dad’s voice from “the other side.”

• The next day I wrote it down in my journal, and then soon forgot about it, until, at the end of December, I was reviewing the year and came across the dream again. I was seriously amazed, because the dream was like a foreshadowing of the understanding I gained about six months later: that my Dad is with our ancestors in the Spirit Realm, and they are my protectors now. That insight helped me to finally sense a subtle feeling of his presence.

1. Today it has been three years since my Dad died suddenly, at age seventy-seven, after heart surgery. Soon after he died, my cousin gave us a detailed diagram about grief, on which I noticed, at the far right side of the healing trajectory, the words “remembering without pain.” At that time, those words seemed like an impossible goal. I could not imagine ever being able to remember him without pain.

• The process of grief is different for each individual, and so each person goes along that sad, solitary road at their own pace, in their own ways. In my grief journey, it was only a few months ago that I first noticed being able to remember my Dad without as much pain.

1. There is still sadness and a little pain (and even still some panic at times), but now there is also some happiness and comfort in remembering him. For example, one day last week I happened to be standing in the spot in the kitchen where I last hugged him good-bye before he left for the hospital. As the memory flashed into my mind, I felt pain rising in me, and I cried, but I also felt happy remembering that our last words to each other were “I love you.”

• It is good to remember that we can be happy even while we are sad. We are capable of feeling opposite emotions simultaneously. Our happiness and gratitude can help ease our sadness and pain.

If you are also grieving the loss of a loved one, may you feel the spirit of happiness along with your sadness. ✨

Grief

Death

Healing

Spirituality

Mental Health