Death sucks. It sucks pretty bad when it happens to you. It sucks more when it happens to your mom or dad. Life kind of just hits you with a wake up like BAM 'did you think we all lived forever?????' and just like that you lose your favorite gal pal or guy pal.

Yes, I realize that I'm pretty light hearted and kind of morbidly sarcastic about it, but that just so happens to be how I handle it. My dad died my second semester of college. It sucked. Honestly. He was diagnosed in February and died the 29th of April. It was a nice April day - not too hot, not too cold and he just had decided and so he went and man did he love having the say - so he was always so bossy!!! I was glad honestly. Almost 3 months of agonizing cancer can really tire you out and the man was not someone who liked being inside. He passed and I hopped right on the train the day after and went back to class the following Thursday. I can still see my Chamber Choir director's face as I walked down the stairs and he opened his mouth and said "What in the Hell are you doing here?!" And I replied "I'm here for class... it's Thursday.."

Side note: I took things very differently as a member of the dead parent club. I grieved on my own, in private and didn't talk much about it. It would get bad, I would deal, and we wouldn't talk about it. Kapeesh? But I didn't realize that it's so different without your dad (or mom but mine's still kickin' love her) on good ole Green Mother Earth. I had to actually cancel multiple calls to him the following six months because I would call him, because I had just found out something I loved that he loved and had to press 'end' because well.. he wasn't going to pick up on the other end.

A main characteristic of the DPC (see title) is the way we all grieve is so enticingly different. I turned to dark humor, one of my friends when they lost their dad turned to making memoirs and banning songs because of memories, and another one of my friends turned to a big ole bottle of Jack. (It's cheaper than therapy, probably not healthier in the long run. I don't know, I'm not a doctor.) and one of my biggest things people need to know about the DPC is you're not allowed to tell ANYONE how to grieve. It is just as unique as every snowflake that falls from the sky.

Also, the recovery period is different in many ways as well. For me, I went and got a tattoo six months after he died of his favorite first three measures of a piece I had played him on the piano a year before (it's Claude Debussy's Clair de Lune). The fall before, he had sprinted over to my piano where I was sitting practicing back at home on an off weekend during my first college semester. He yelled "WAIT WAIT. Let me go grab my phone!" and proceeded to rush to his bedroom to grab his phone, hit record, and pointed at the ivory keys underneath my fingers and said "Go." I proceeded to play until I reached half way through the song and ended it with a V-I cadence because I didn't want him to know that I didn't know the ending of the song! (Yes music major nerds, the middle is hard, I am weak. Give me a break, I'm an opera singer.) He picked up his phone, stopped recording and just kind of walked away and I was never quite sure what he did with the recording. I ended up playing that song two more times on my piano. Once on the last day he was alive, hoping he would do the same and jump up to the piano and then finally the day of his funeral in March. It rained. Debussy seemed only fit to play one last ringing time into the empty confines of my father's house.

Now that you all know my story as a member of the Dead Parent Club, I want you to know this. Share your memories. Talk about them. Cry. Laugh. Smile. Breakdown. Here I am sitting writing this article and haven't cried about his death for months and I'm tearing up just thinking of the introduction phrase of a piano piece.

Sharing the stories of your loved ones keeps them alive. Whether you believe in the great beyond or just a galaxy far, far away, when we as humans talk, we create beautiful stories and pictures with just our words and someone who never knew your mother or father or dog can feel what it felt like to be loved by them. Write, sing, and play and keep their memories alive. Talk about them and don't let death be a stigma or a scary bad juju word.

Accept the fact that we will all die. Every single one of us was born and every single one of us will die (here my Catholic takes over and says 'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust'). Take comfort that the richest man and poorest man will end up in the exact same place whether surrounded by beautiful stone or a wooden box.

But until that fateful day, love. George Eliot once said "Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them."

Be your own story teller. Keep them alive through your voice and your children will do the same for you.

Love you dad.