F*ckuary, My Season of Grieving

“Collect call from Doris. Will you accept the charges?”

“Yes.” I hear the telephone line click, then I say, “Hi Grandma!”

“I knew you’d say that!” I imagine my mom smiling as I describe my new baby girl, her first and only grandchild.

“My social worker and the chaplain are trying to find a halfway house in California so I can be closer to you.”

My heart sinks. Great, I think to myself, then I’ll have two to take care of.

I promise to send photos. I never do. We bury her weeks later.

My mother had been hospitalized at the North Dakota State Hospital since February 1972, three days after she remarried during my junior year of high school. In February 1986, she signed herself out of her ward for craft class but was a no show. Since she had a history of going AWOL, the staff was sure she would show up.

My mother was found under a tree on the property days later after her sister drove to the hospital and insisted the staff find her.

I remember feeling numb. As a new breast-feeding mom with a three-month-old and a career in California, it was a lot to process. A new medicine would seem promising, until it no longer worked. I’d lived that hopeful roller coaster with her since fifth grade and it was heartbreaking to a kid who just wanted her mom to get better and be like the moms everyone else had. For a time during my high school years, she lived in an apartment and supported herself working at the hospital…until she remarried.

My mother and I

In February 2016, my niece called me in the middle of the night to say my stepbrother Gary had passed. Gary was one year older than me and an athlete who still kept fit by running. We had a lot in common…we’d both been in the military, we’d used our educational benefits to get a college degree, and we’d both been divorced. He was the first to pass of the family formed by my father marrying his mother the day after I graduated high school.

It’s been eight years

I thought Gary would outlive us all.

When my father passed two years later in February 2018, the gloves were off…I dubbed the month F*ckUary. Sure, I’d lost my mother decades earlier, but that was different. I lost her to mental illness long before she walked out of the North Dakota State Hospital on a frigid February day and died of hypothermia.

My father fought for and won custody of my brother and I during the era where children were assumed to be the mother’s responsibility, regardless of mental state. He was my rock, my go-to guy through out-of-state moves, joining the military, marriages, a miscarriage, the birth of my daughter, divorces, and coming out.

“Guess what I did Pa?”

He was never quite sure what I would say next, and inevitably, he would respond, “You did what?!” Then want to hear all about it.

Whether it was joining the Marines, skydiving, running a marathon, or getting a promotion, he was always my biggest fan and cheerleader. This was the guy who water-skied in the Missouri River for 12 straight months without a wet suit so clearly, I was my father’s daughter.

Pa and I playing his favorite dice game (6-5-4) in his basement bar. He kept a running list of all the games played, who played, and who won.

Pa had prepared for his passing by writing his own funeral service and obituary eight years earlier. My father also planned for my niece and I to deliver eulogies. I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to do it.

Every morning and evening when I drove his Subaru Forester 30 minutes to and from town, I listened to “Dance with My Father” by Vince Gill on repeat so I could settle into the grief. It helped. I did some gut-wrenching, ugly crying and was able to deliver the eulogy my father deserved.

Pa was a car guy. He bought this personalized plate for his last new car, the Subaru Forester. It’s a bittersweet reminder that he was the last of his siblings to pass.

I’ve learned grief isn’t something you get over, it’s something you learn to live with. It changes over time, and although you come to accept the loss, you never know when a new wave of grief is going to strike without warning.

Once, while working out I heard contestant Marybeth Byrd sing “Go Rest High on That Mountain,” on The Voice, I was immediately transported back to the days following my father’s death. I damn near fell off my treadmill.

Last February, I lost a dear friend, a surrogate mother of sorts…but that’s a story for another day.

Sybil wanted the rose centered between us because it symbolized her mother, Rose.

While my daughter was growing up, the folks (my father and stepmom) would take a road trip and visit us every year. I always made an annual trip to Bismarck so my daughter would have a close relationship with her grandparents. Once she was older, she’d travel as an unaccompanied minor during the summer to stay longer and strengthen those bonds.

During the pandemic, my daughter and I moved back to Bismarck, but it’s not the same without him being there. Today I’m a grandmother who lives far away from her granddaughter. I only now realize how difficult it must have been for both of them that we didn’t live closer.

My father passed six years ago today…Love You Much, Miss You Always Pa. And Mom, I regret that I never sent you the photos. I love you and wish I had shown you the same compassion my daughter has shown me. You would be so proud of your granddaughter and thrilled with your beautiful great-granddaughter.