Thoughts on Loss from a Grieving Therapist
I don’t know who I am writing this blog for. I might be writing because I think someone could connect with this. I also might be writing because I have processing of my own to do. I genuinely can’t tell, and I usually can, but I find myself disorganized these days. My father passed away about 2 months ago, and I’ve been reflecting on my relationship with him and my experience of myself as time goes on. I have been asking myself a lot of questions, existential and otherwise, but I keep coming back to one. What does it mean to me that I help people even while I am in pain?
Tim Hicks
My dad’s name was Tim Hicks. My dad was a good man in a context where I did not get to see many examples of good men. He worked for churches throughout my younger life as a youth minister and children’s minister. He was dedicated to his work at the church and, by extension, his community.
I remember one conversation with my dad that I had as an angsty teen. I was wrestling with some feelings of pointlessness in life, because my depression started young. He told me that one of the few things he knew in life for sure was that he was a servant. Dad was a caretaker, he wanted to help people. I’ve written about my difficult relationship with the faith I was raised with before, but the fact that my father helped people is indisputable. I remember a youth group member showing up to our house, and being confused as to why they were there. Sometime when I was older, I came to realize that kid showed up at our house because it was safe when their home wasn’t. My dad started mentorship programs for kids in his community. He went to court with kids who had gotten into trouble instead of judging them.
Watching all of this, I learned about what it means to care for people from my dad.. I saw him give of himself until he was exhausted sometimes. He showed me what it meant to be selfless. He was so persistent and unwavering. I would hear about the nonsense of church politics when it seemed like something else was happening that would get in the way of my Dad helping in the way he wanted to. And from what I saw…you could not have paid me to get in Tim Hicks’ way. He was going to do his best to care for people, and nothing was going to stop him.
All of the help he provided mattered because he still showed up as a father too. He didn’t let his work for the church fully envelop him, he was a caring, loving and kind father to me and my brother. I always knew that his family came first, and it was always a forgone conclusion. I don’t mean to make my father out to be a perfect man, I just mean to say that he was always there for me as best as he could be. To see him be that kind of family man while serving his community taught me the value of connection and care for others. I’m forever grateful to have had Tim Hicks as my dad.
Unfinished Business
This term comes from Gestalt Therapy, and is also one of the oldest cliches you can think of probably. Essentially, we all have unfinished business with those from our past: something that was left hanging or unresolved between us and someone in our life. We talk about this in terms of hurts or traumas a lot of the time, but those are not the bits of unfinished business that show up for me.
My unfinished business shows up most often in the morning. In between finishing my morning routine and before my first client I get to know it better. It’s like an unpeaceful calm. An uncomfortable settling. An unquiet silence. My unfinished business appears as I leave my apartment somedays and joins me on my walk to my office. It sees my clients with me. It is with me at home when I sit with my partner.
My unfinished business is not hurt or trauma that was inflicted on me. My unfinished business is just the pain that life keeps going on without him in it. My pain is the passage of time, longing and absence. I long for the friendship that I had with my dad to continue to grow. I wonder how I could have connected with him more as I aged.
I have always been given the message that I need to be present with my clients and I’ve been wondering how it is that I am able to be a therapist right now? I am, I measure my outcomes well enough that it does not appear that there are any issues. I just can’t help but wonder how that can be true during a time in my life when I feel anything but capable. And I don’t think I’m going to come up with an answer other than the fact that I do seem to be resilient based on some of my life experiences.
I think I’m able to continue on right now, because I think the pain might connect us as humans. I can still see my clients and their pain through my own. In a way, I feel like my own pain focuses me toward my clients. Something about that sharp pain that sometimes pierces my heart heightens things. And I can sometimes see some of that sharp pain in their eyes. It is a look that speaks and it speaks my language.
I find some meaning in that shared language. I am not one to think that attunement and validation will automatically make our problems go away, but what I can say is that the experience of resonance, especially about pain, is really something else. I can feel that resonance again when I think about times I’ve received that in my relationships and when I’m playing music.
Paying Respects…
I came to really love this phrase in my 20’s while I had been going through several years where people close to me passed. I’ve experienced the pain of my dad’s passing as his impact on me. He showed me how to be a helper and caretaker; he always was one to me. My pain speaks to the relationship that I had with him, and my pain is the respect I have to offer. My presence in my pain is the respect I have to offer. Life does continue to go on, and I was shown how to be a helper by someone who lived to help during the time he had. My Dad knew pain. I don’t think I fully knew the hurts he carried with him, but the few times I was able to hear about them I felt honored. My Dad helped people, and I think he did because he knew what it was like to need help. I am a helper today because of the man that my Dad was to me. I find some sad beauty in the way that our pain can connect us. And I am grateful that I was raised by a man who showed me that I can care for people even when I’m hurting.
And I have him with me still. I think we all know this intuitively. I lost my grandfather a few years back. And every once in a blue moon, you might catch me shooting baskets at a court in Cap Hill all by my lonesome. My grandpa really taught me basketball, and if you see me out there, I’m talking to him.
I haven’t been able to talk to my Dad yet. It is still too soon, and I am still hurting. But I know that when I do, he will be there.
He always was…
