My father died early in the morning, Wednesday, 27th June. Last week. Nine days ago.

It was sudden in that his worst case prognosis was weeks, though I was hoping for months, but then his condition unexpectedly and irrevocably declined, as conditions do when you’ve had prostate cancer for twelve years, and in the last three it had crept into the bones.

I loved my Dad. It always strikes me that love is this unquantifiable, intangible thing, especially when it’s a slow, steady familial love. It’s not giddy like passion. You don’t walk around with a daffy smile on your face, constantly telling yourself how much you’re in love with another person. The love I had for my father was weighed out in the Wednesday afternoons that I set by for him and him alone. In the hour detour on the way to his house so I could bring him the Jewish rye bread he loved so much. For the hours spent making chicken soup to tempt his ailing appetite. For threatening to smack him, and making good on my threat, when he led me astray as we did the crossword together. Love was the vigil that my brother, sister and I sat for three days as Dad slipped away and we vowed that he wouldn’t be left alone. When he went, peacefully in his sleep at last, at last, we’d all had a chance to say our goodbyes, to speak of our love and to wish him Godspeed on his way to the kingdom.

The next two days were spent in forward motion. Arranging the funeral. Attending the funeral. Getting through the eulogy without crying. Sitting shiva. And then it all stopped. There was nothing left to do but carry on living without him.

I don’t cry. I did so much crying during that last week in the hospital that I sometimes think I might never cry again. Mostly I just feel sad. It’s a pervasive, grey kind of sadness that I don’t probe or examine too deeply, because then I remember exactly why I’m sad and it hurts too much.

And I feel alone, in the way that I suppose you do when both your father and mother are gone. Like, I have no roots, nothing to anchor me down. The buck stops with me. I am my own family now. I’m the person who gets me the most. I’m not and never can be a child again, I’m a grown-up.

And I keep forgetting too, because countless times every day I file away bits of information and funny anecdotes and questions for when I call my Dad because I call him at least twice a day. Then I remember, I don’t get to call him anymore.

But you know what? The world still turns same as it ever did. I get up, get dressed, go to the gym, feel slightly pleased that for once in my life I’ve lost my appetite and I carry on. I don’t want to get all Pollyanna, but I’ve still found reasons to cheer. My friends have been incredible, even the friends who shouldn’t have been because Lord knows, they’re dealing with enough bad shit themselves. The kindness of strangers, of readers, of the people who live on my Twitter feed has made me melt. And yeah, I also discovered who my friends never, ever were, which always simples things up.

I’m not the sort of person who has a philosophy on life but I do believe that when something bloody awful happens, you have to balance it out and make something bloody good happen to. So, I’ve let someone new into my life (I’ll blog about them some other time, because right now I want to blog about my Dad and if you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know who I’m talking about.) There’s no schedule to grief, no right or wrong way to feel, though it feels wrong not to give all my energy and attention to my grief. It also feels wrong that mixed in with the sadness that I talked about earlier are huge amounts of happiness, but it’s a relief to know that I can still be happy.

I will never get over the loss of my Dad. I wouldn’t want to because the depth of my loss is equal to the depth of my love for him, but I know that in time, the loss gets less raw, less painful, less like I could take to my bed and stay there for ever.

Right now, that loss is all around me, but it’s not until you’re lost, that someone can find you.

Live on,

Sarra x