First off I just want to say that everyone grieves differently, and that is perfectly okay. In fact, that is what has helped me throughout these past eight years. My brother and I have very different feelings about our father primarily because he is older and had six more years with him than I did. I didn’t see all the stuff that our father put my family through, which makes me glad and incredibly sad at the same time. Even in my dad’s worst times, I wish I still got to see them, just so I could have seen him.

I always found it funny how people want to try and remember the dead as if they were all angels in their lifetimes. That is not the truth, and more importantly, that’s simply not life. What I wish more than anything, is to see my father one more time to have one final conversation, and to get all the answers I have been yearning for since he passed.

Any kid who has a parent that has died from an addiction has several questions that they would like answers to. Questions like...

• Why was the feeling of being high better than the feeling of being with your family?
• Did you even attempt to get/ stay clean?
• Do you think if we didn’t leave you that you would have eventually gotten better?
• Why did you have to have a disease that makes me fear that I could possibly be sentenced to the same fate as you?
• Was it worth it?

Now, the questions that we selfishly want answered, just to know if they care about the people they left behind...

• Are you proud of me? Am I how you wish I turned out?
• Do you miss me as much as I miss you?
• Do you love me?

People ask these questions hoping that someday they will all be magically answered, but we all know the truth. These questions, as much as we would love them to be answered, know that they are just empty words. They weigh down our thoughts (sometimes) to the point of no return. These questions also vary depending how you feel about your dead family member at the time. Yes, there are many stages of grief, but most of the time it’s not linear, and there is no magical time where you will be “okay.”

The truth of the matter is that there will always be a huge piece of you missing and there is no way to fill it. People always say time helps, but in my case, I have found that to be half true. I shoved all the feelings I have about my dad down for so long, and instead of them exploding in a couple of months after he passed it happened when I went to college. Eight years later and I am finally ready and able to move on and live my life with the help I have gotten.

Death has taught me a lot about life, as the girl who in middle school who was regarded as “that girl who keeps losing people,” which is true I have lost my fair share of people over the past eight years, my dad, my grandma (who helped my mom raise me in the absence of my father), my Buppa, two of my uncles and a number of family friends. I have learned that you cannot be obsessed with the questions listed above because they will stunt you from being able to grow and move on to become the person you are meant to be. Life is meant for the living, not be tethered to the ones you have lost, so go live your lives and be happy that you are still strong enough and blessed to have them.