Three hundred sixty-five days—Eight thousand seven hundred sixty hours—Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes—each can be used to describe ONE year. Today, November 19, 2021, marks ONE year since my father transitioned beyond this world. I choose the word transition because death is finite and suggests I’ll never see him again, and one thing I’ve learned over this ONE year is that that is not true.

I can feel my father in so many things. I hear his voice (sometimes even in mine) when I need advice or am looking for a solution. I feel his warmth in the sunlight. I smell his scent in the passing breeze. I talk to him in my solitude and my dreams. All of this says to me that he is forever present irrespective of his physical being; for that I am extremely thankful.

If you would’ve told me on November 18, 2020, that I’d be writing this post a year later, I would’ve pushed that idea to the side. My father was still young and although Alzheimer’s Disease had stolen so much from him—from us—I still thought we had more physical time together. But life happens as it does and things can change in the blink of an eye.

This ONE year has been the most introspective of my life. When I set out to start this blog, I thought I would keep to a bi-weekly schedule of posts about my journey as a caregiver. November 19, quickly showed me how suddenly things change and that plans must be amended. Initially, I thought I’d just take a few weeks off before I started to write again, but weeks turned into more weeks, which turned into months, and now, ONE year. I quickly found I had no desire to write because I didn’t know what to say. The direction and journey I had been preparing to share had suddenly been taken away from me and every time I thought I would give it a try, this paralyzing void of direction stopped me in my tracks.

People told me that the grief of losing a parent would hit me in waves. I thought I knew what they meant. I realized as it happened that I had no idea. I thought it would be sudden feelings of sadness, crying spells, or anger for losing a parent “too soon.” What I found is that it is a constant, everyday feeling of loss. It’s not total sadness, crying, or anger. Those are just the releases of the everyday realization of the loss; that’s what comes in waves.

After my dad transitioned and the service was over, I thought I’d feel overwhelming sadness and although I was sad, I thought it would be more to handle than what it seemingly was. I realized over the course of this ONE year, that I have been experiencing this loss since my dad’s health started to decline more severely around 2017/18. That’s when the effects of his diagnosis really started to become more evident with each passing day. I thought maybe I was numb to the pain or that I was coping better than others who seemed to be more outwardly affected. What I know now is that it just showed up in my life differently. And while it temporarily put a hold on my writing, it also taught me how to be more present in my truth as a person and in my relationships with family and friends. I better realized the value in our collective experiences and how that shapes and influences us. I make a conscious effort now to seek the value in my experiences and want to rid my life of negativity, which includes my own negative thoughts. Life is too short to be bogged down by those things that do not bring us light, love, happiness, or enrich our lives. This has given me a renewed sense of purpose and direction.

If I had to sum up what this ONE year has taught me, it’s that I’m still learning lessons from my father, even in his physical absence.

Thank you, Dad, for loving me through space and time and continuing to teach me your invaluable lessons.

– Brandon