Ups and Downs

It's been a week of ups and downs for me. Some days are good. Most days are tolerable. And some days are downright bad. But hands down, this month has been tougher than last. I'm not sure why, but from people that I talk to, it seems to be getting harder instead of easier. There's been a lot of "if Dad were here..." moments, which are usually followed by "why the hell isn't Dad here?" moments. There's been a lot more stress and a lot more tears.

And somehow, in the midst of what have easily been 2 of the worst weeks of my life, I seem to have decided to start wedding planning again. Why? I have no clue. Thinking about it now, it seems just wrong. I've been a tortured soul most days, so it just doesn't seem right that I've also allowed myself to be genuinely excited about planning the happiest stupidest day of my life. I'm guessing that most people feel this type of contradictory happy/sad feeling. At least, it seems to make sense that people would feel contradictory about it. After all, weddings are supposed to be happy things. But how can it be a happy thing when there are no happy things right now? And when I'm experiencing a seemingly happy moment, isn't that wrong? No, I know it's not wrong... but it sure does feel like it ought to be.

Fatherless brides

Today I had the pleasure of getting encouragement from two other women who both lost their fathers shortly before their weddings also. The one I have known for a short while and we got the chance to sit and talk for a while tonight. The other is an old friend of my sister's who I haven't seen since I was just a little girl. It was funny, tonight J and I were talking about how we haven't heard of anyone else who has had this happen to them, and then when I got home I had an email from this long-lost family friend. So now I know of 3 (including myself). I'm sure there are more out there, but it's not the type of thing that comes up in general conversation. Unfortunately, it is also not the type of thing that there are many internet resources for. When I type "fatherless brides" into Google, I get a few results of etiquette. If I add the term "grief" to the search I get a bunch of useless nonsense. Hopefully this blog can help change that and make it so future grieving fatherless brides can easily find some comfort in the thoughts and ramblings of another who has gone through the same thing.

Denial & distraction

There's a lot of different guides to the phases of grief out there. One commonality between all of them is a phase of denial. This doesn't make much sense to me. Of course I know my dad is not around anymore, I don't deny that. I'm starting to realize though, that maybe my form of denial is avoiding steps that support the fact that he's gone. For instance:

• Removing his number from my cell phone. This is even more peculiar since my sister from out of the country is still here and using his cell phone now, so every time she calls me my cell phone says "Dad calling" & I think "I ought to change that sometime soon", but then I try & I just can't yet. I mentioned this to my other sisters and they haven't changed theirs yet either - at least I'm not the only one.
• Sending comic strips. Dad enjoyed emailing comic strips that he found funny. I would occasionally find a good one and send it to him too. In the last month I keep finding good ones. So I send them to other people. It's not the same but at least it's close enough.
  
• Deciding who will walk me down the aisle at the wedding. I shouldn't have to make this decision, so therefore I'll put it off and hope it goes away. After all, picking someone for the job would make it real.

Even more than denial, I'm enjoying a good dose of distraction as well. I watch TV & read until all hours of the night. I blog. And ironically, I think about wedding details. Mostly I think about things like what the invitations should say, how to avoid the "giving me away" part, what exactly to do about photos, and which flights we should take for the honeymoon. I think about wedding details, I talk about wedding details, but I don't actually do anything about wedding details. As soon as I do something about the details they won't be a distraction anymore, and then what will I do? Most girls enjoy planning their wedding; I use it to numb my day to day.

Who needs pictures anyways?

When I first started planning this wedding, Dad was the picture of health. Ok, maybe an overweight, non-active picture, but a healthy picture nonetheless. When I interviewed the first photographer, he recommended that I make a list of all of the pictures that I definitely want. My list looked pretty typical:

• Us
• Me & my siblings
• Us & my family
• Us & my extended family
• Us & his family
• Etc., etc., etc.

My thought was that for the first time in a long time, the entire family will be together and all dressed up so we should take advantage and get lots of pictures of all of us. BOY has that changed! Shortly after Dad died, one of my first thoughts was that I definitely do NOT want wedding pictures because Dad will be obviously absent from them. Almost one month later, I still feel the same way.

Would I regret this decision later in life? Possibly. But I don't think so. I'm not a huge picture person in the first place, and I think it would be immeasurably harder for me to have to stand around for family photos without Dad there & then later look through those pictures knowing that he had to miss such a fun occasion.

I think what I'd rather do is have just candid pictures on the wedding day & then get dressed back up later in the summer and go get pictures of just us, with no additional family. Then I still get nice pictures of us without having to have the whole wedding photo experience.