Hidden Grief
The ‘shameful’ thoughts the bereaved are reluctant to disclose
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Soon after my dad died in 2004, I came to the logical conclusion that I was evil. I told my new boyfriend about it in a jokey manner, my go-to approach for serious yet scary conversations.
“I’m about 80% evil. Just thought you should know…” I casually mentioned while using a Bic pen to draw a doodle on his hand (one of the many odd flirtations we participated in during the early months).
Never in my life had I been so judgemental, and coupled with that judgment was an underlying riptide of rage.
In college, I was about as straight edge as one could be — no drinking, smoking, drugs, parties, rule-breaking, and until that moment, relationships. He looked at me with a smirk and responded, “Yeah — ok, sure,” and that was that.
He couldn’t see any evil in my innocent presentation and figured it was one of my quirks, like how I would wear old-man velcro sneakers and knee-high socks with splashy patterns.
What he didn’t know about, and what I was too scared to admit, were the thoughts that had been swirling in my head during my dad’s final year and in the months after his death. My hostility of people with intact families, my hatred towards a friend’s mother who never expressed her condolences, and my short temper with anyone who expressed sadness about the death of a grandparent or (gasp) a dog. I was a 20-year-old consumed by angrief.
Never in my life had I been so judgemental, and coupled with that judgment was an underlying riptide of rage. Despite these all-consuming feelings, I remained silent. I felt that I couldn’t disclose the terrible thoughts swirling in my brain, because truly they must have been the leanings of a sociopath.
