I would often cry in private, and in public. I didn’t have the courage to go to an IRL grief counseling group (mostly due to social anxiety), and I wasn't fully aware of the other resources available to those coping with grief - like mental health apps, online services, and pay-what-you-wish therapists. Being a restaurant worker, other than a small bit of paid time off, I didn’t have a great benefits plan, and paying out of pocket for a therapist wasn't in the cards for me. It turns out that healing from traumatic grief can be difficult, especially without decent health insurance. It wasn’t their dad.Īll there was left for me to do was to pick up the pieces and try to keep going. I understood why it all seemed to fade out of existence for everyone else. People stopped talking about what had happened. Was he afraid? Did he feel any pain? Was he thinking of me?Ĭountless emotional breakdowns, a few more trips to his apartment, and one funeral later, it was over. Instead, I was left to think about how his last moments were alone in that car. Not that it makes it any better, but if he had been sick, maybe I could have said goodbye. That meant I had to do all of this on my own, with a little logistical help from my mom and stepfather.Īll the while, I had to reckon with the fact that at 22 years old, right at the start of my post-grad adult life, I had lost my dad. That made me the sole executor of his estate. My dad never remarried, and my sister is technically my half-sister (I was there when she was born, so even saying 'half' feels weird) with no relation to my father. My parents had been divorced since the beginning of my life. You have to tell your grandparents that their son is now dead. You become inundated with sympathetic phone calls and texts that you barely ever get around to answering. You have to go to their apartment and sort through all of their stuff like you're on some fucked up HGTV program. If your parent was in a wreck like my dad was, you have to make trips to the police station to collect their tattered clothes and a random assortment of belongings. What they don’t tell you about losing a parent is that it’s a lot of work. I cried a bit, but mostly I felt like it wasn’t really happening, like I was on the world’s cruelest prank show and somebody was about to tell me it was all a hoax. I don’t remember exactly how I reacted, but I recall pure numbness. No warning, no slow burn - he was gone, just like that. He suffered a heart attack behind the wheel, crashed, and didn’t make it out. The short story: My dad had been in a car accident. That’s when my mom sat me down and told me what had happened. My unsuspecting girlfriend thought she was helping to plan a nice impromptu evening with my family (hence the takeout suggestion), but that wasn’t quite the case.

I was confused, but also pleasantly surprised. She came back inside, my mom and little sister following behind. She went down to let them in I figured it was the delivery person. A while later, my girlfriend picked up a call and told me we had visitors downstairs. I was too tired to even think about making dinner. She suggested we order take-out, which I was more than happy to do. I walked into my apartment, hugged my girlfriend, and attempted to de-stress. As it turned out, he had been for a few hours already. I just walked out and hurried to my train.Īs I sat in my seat, staring out the window, I had no idea that my dad was dead. On that particular day, I remember wanting to get home so badly I didn’t even change out of my work clothes at the end of my shift. Mostly, I fantasized about quitting and going home. I tolerated that shit for almost three years.Įvery day, I stood at the front podium in a cheap suit, leaning occasionally (which wasn't allowed) and checking my phone when my manager wasn’t looking. It was the kind of place where most of the customers were rich, white Wall Street dudes who liked to remind you of how small you were, hurling insults about your life trajectory when you couldn't get them a table. My dad died on a September afternoon, while I was going through the motions of another boring lunch shift as the maître d' at a bougie hotel restaurant in the Financial District of New York City.

Death come true reddit