Dear Pudge

May 18th, 2014

Dear Pudge,

    Right now it probably feels like your world is crashing down. You believe that Alaska is “just dead. Just darkness” (Green 219), just as I believed that my dad was “gone for good. Not his soul, his memory, or what he gave us, but everything else.”

Yes she is gone, yes it hurts, and quite honestly Pudge, it’s hard to spin this in a positive way. I doubt you want to. You likely shake your head when your peers tell you that “Alaska is in a better place” or that “you are going to get through this” or that “you are so lucky compared to most people.”  Many people, including myself, have attempted to focus on the benefits that come from the death of a loved one. And, I’m not going to deny, there are quite a few. Bereaved children often have a mature perspective on the world. As Jill Brooke explains in her book, grief makes children feel like outsiders, and this allows them to see the world “in a nontraditional way.” This bereavement prompts abstract thought, which “builds empires because you see what others may not, and bereavement spurs the child to be introspective” (Brooke 120). She goes on to mention many successful people, including great leaders, thinkers, and artists who lost a parent at a young age. Among this list were Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

Pudge, I’m not trying to say that you are going to become president of the USA because you are experiencing grief. The truth is, you probably won’t. (Sorry if that comes as a shock.) What I am saying is that although it’s painful, and to be honest, it might continue to be painful for much or all of your life, you might gain a perspective that is unique from that of your peers as a result. One way that I see this manifested in me is that I don’t conform to my peers. I know myself, I know my limits, I am confident in my choices, and I’m not easily swayed. Knowing yourself and respecting yourself is important, Pudge. It’s really important.

    So, yes, maybe you’ll gain a unique perspective from this. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. My dad died eight years ago. Eight years is a pretty long time. Yet, I still think about him every day. I still long for him to be a part of my life. There are moments when my dad’s death will come up in conversation somehow, and my peers will change the subject as quickly as possible. What they don’t understand is that I still want to talk about it. By talking about it, in a way, I can keep him alive. I especially feel sad at special times in my life. As I near the end of my senior year, I’m at a turning point in my life. I would LOVE to have my dad there to see what I have accomplished. I want him to be a proud dad, and he doesn’t get to be. When I look out the window into the park next to my house, I see little girls playing with their dads in the sandbox, and it kills me (metaphorically, of course.) I would give anything to hit the rewind button on my life story and sit in the sandbox with my dad. But of course I know that will never happen. This is my life. I don’t have a father. I am fatherless. And I hate that. I doubt I will ever feel okay about that. But you know what, Pudge? I have learned that it’s okay not to have closure. Acceptance can come without closure. In a book by Nancy Berns, she explains that in our society, there is an emphasis on rushing to end grief and that this rush hurts us. She says that “the closure frame may be appealing since it keeps grief and loss tidy and short lived, but it is a poor reflection of what many people experience when grieving a deep loss” (Berns 166). She goes on to say that some people have emotions and memories that they “never want to pack away,” and that’s okay. There is a social expectation that grief will follow a pattern, but that’s not the case. People grieve in all different ways. I and many others can’t stand the “stages of grief” that we learn about in Psychology class. There is no roadmap. You can’t condense grief into “stages.”

    Pudge, I know I just rambled quite a bit. The main point I want you to take away is that it is okay to not fold your feelings into piles. Maybe your feelings are strewn across the floor. That’s okay. However you feel, be kind to yourself. Find ways to release. As Ashley Prend explains in her book, “No one can sustain intense feelings twenty-four hours a day” (Prend 27). Let yourself have a break from your grief, but also know that your grief is acceptable, no matter what form it takes.

    I’m thinking about you.

    I’m not going to say that I know how you feel, because I don’t. But even though I don’t totally understand you, and my grieving process doesn’t 100% match yours, I feel connected to you in a way that I don’t to most other teenagers. Maybe you can find some peace in that knowledge.

Yours Truly,

Natalie Jacobson (Who by the way, still doesn’t have the answers)