“A father is someone you look up to no matter how tall you grow.”
“My father didn’t do anything unusual. He only did what dads are supposed to do – be there.”
— Max Lucado
“A father is neither an anchor to hold us back, nor a sail to take us there, but a guiding light whose love shows us the way.”
When your parents are gone, you may easily feel alone in the world, even if you have made your own family and are surrounded by friends.
There’s nothing similar to the relationship you can have with your father.
But, even when your father was not the most exemplary parent, you’ll still miss him when he is gone. Grieving is a process.
There’s no shortcut; you have to go through it. But there are ways to go through this hard time of your life without being scared or traumatized. Let’s explore these:
Solution #1: Write a Letter to Your Dead Father
Your father died, and you miss him so much. You feel like there are so many things you haven’t told him, so many things you wanted to share, but you didn’t have enough time.
Or maybe some things were too difficult to talk about, so you postponed telling him about those, and now you feel it’s too late.
Maybe you haven’t had the time to say goodbye to your father, even though you were aware that the day when he is gone is coming.
A great way to honor your dad’s memory and still nurture your connection with him is to write him a letter. Yes, he will never really read the letter.
Writing a letter to your father will allow you to express your feelings, contemplate your relationship with him, and remember all the best moments you shared, all the good things you learned from him, and all the lessons he taught you.
You can also write about everything you didn’t like about your relationship with your father.
Share all the things you hadn’t dared to tell him, confront him with the truths about yourself that you avoided speaking about when he was alive.
After you write the letter, you will still feel sad, but you’ll also feel ready to accept your sadness so that the grieving process can take its natural course.
Solution #2: Accept Your Feelings
If left untreated, emotions of sorrow or rage might intensify, especially if you’ve never seen death up close.
Understanding the flow of these emotions can be done, for example, through mindfulness meditation.
Think about relaxing on a riverbank while observing the boats. Similar to how you might observe your thoughts to discover how your emotions have been affected by your sadness.
By “monitoring” your thoughts, you become more aware of how they affect your emotions, which in turn lessens the pendulum effect of emotions.
You start to lessen the force of your emotions by anticipating them.
Solution #3: Take Care of Yourself
There are various ways that grief may harm you. Sleep deprivation, decreased appetite, and immune system impairment is very frequent.
Protecting your fitness and health is the cure.
Protecting your health first will guarantee that you can heal and assist others in doing the same, similar to the pre-flight safety guidelines to put on your oxygen mask before aiding others.
Only a few steps are necessary. Start a walking group, consume natural, unprocessed foods, and drink plenty of water.
Your mood and ability to cope will improve when you feel physically strong.
Solution #4: Grieve in Your Way
Grief might make us self-conscious about how other people view us.
Please don’t evaluate your response to loss since there is no right or wrong way to grieve.
You’re not required to act or appear in a specific way.
For some people, it may be easier to through themselves into work, and others may need some time off.
Everyone has the right to grieve in their unique way.
Please do not concern yourself with how it seems to others or what they may think.
Never worry about being judged because this is only your personal experience. Follow your feelings.
Solution #5: Honor the Beautiful Memories
At first, thinking about your dad will probably make you cry. You normally find it hard to control your emotions when others around you express sympathy.
But, in time, you will learn that by thinking back on the happy moments you had together, you can still enjoy your dad’s “company.”
Don’t refrain from seeing yourself recreating your special experiences.
You’ll eventually smile or giggle to yourself exactly as you did at the moment. So enjoy seeing your parents whenever you want and allow them to continue to exist in your mind.
You Want to Talk to Your Dad Who Passed Away – What Does It Mean?
If you want to talk to your dead father, it means that there is a lot left unsaid between you.
However, it can also mean that he was someone with whom you were extremely close, who perhaps understands you better than others, and you need that kind of relationship.
In any case, it is important that you understand that it is natural that you have such a need after your father passes away. Also, it can mean that you are not ready to say goodbye to him yet.
Maybe some of your conversations were left unfinished, so you continue them in your head.
One effective way to deal with this need is to write down all your unfinished conversations and how you imagine they would end.
This way, you will get that content out of yourself, and then it will be easier for you to see your need more objectively and understand why you miss talking to your father so much.
What If You Can’t Get Over Your Dad’s Death?
Losing your father, no matter what kind of relationship you had with him, is a huge stress. Grieving is a process and, as such, has different stages.
It is typical for people who experience a great loss to go through these five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
When there are unresolved issues in your relationship, you may get stuck in some phase of grieving.
Also, if there are other stressful events in your life, the circumstances may overcome your defense mechanisms, and you cannot control your feelings.
It is very important that you understand that it is perfectly okay to ask for help.
Many people tend to shut down and withdraw when they are grieving. But that only makes the process of accepting the loss more difficult.
The feeling of shame also prevents many people from going through grieving. As if they are ashamed of the sadness they feel.
These are all things that require special treatment. You should also know that grieving is not a linear process and can happen just after you think it is easier for you to return to the previous phase.
In the depression phase, people most often have the experience that they will never be able to get over the loss of their father.
But it is only a passing experience and a natural process of grieving.
It is important that you do not try to suppress emotions in this period and do not try to fight against them because that will only slow down and make the whole process more difficult.
The Unique Father & Daughter Bond
Fathers are very important to girls. They hold the key to a woman’s self-confidence and security and strongly influence her choice of life partner.
For girls who had good fathers and those who didn’t, the death of their father is a great loss because it puts an end to their childhood.
Girls with good fathers now have to look for that support and that security within themselves.
With their death, girls who did not have that luck and whose fathers were not there for them forever lose the opportunity to repair that relationship.
The more mature a person is, the less complicated the grieving will be.
Girls who had complicated relationships with their fathers should seek support from other men of significance during this fragile period of their lives.
Final Thoughts
The loss of a parent is frequently dismissed by society as a normal course of events, but those who have gone through it understand how profoundly it alters their lives.
You experience pain and loss because you have a heart, but that heart is much more resilient than you would have thought.
You suddenly become aware of how important family bonds are.
The same heart may gain self-assurance, beat with fresh hope, and become healthier than ever by doing the abovementioned actions. You should and can still have fun.
Your dad would have approved of it. Live your life knowing that your father will be pleased with you.