Do you want to know what I think?
No dead dad, no opinion.
I do NOT care if the topic of death makes you feel awkward.
Seth Doyle
By
Updated 5 years ago,January 3, 2020
My dad died 14 years ago.
Most people who know me knows he is dead.
They know how he died and they know when he died.
At this point, death is pretty much my niche.
Am I saying the d-word to much?
Does it make you uncomfortable?
Would you prefer I said, Oh, he passed on when I was 11?
Or would you rather me not talk about it at all?
Does it weird you out that I still talk about him like he is still alive?
Maybe I should pretend that he never existed at all?
This is what people who grieve go through every day.
I used to worry about whether or not I brought up my dad too much.
One time I even noticed a voice in my head tell me to not bring up my dad.
And at what cost?
To make people feel okay about something that didnt happen to them?
Thats when something changed within me.
I started to talk about my dad.
I started to make dead dad jokes.
Often people hear that and there is an immediate discomfort.
Why would I do that?
Why would I make people uncomfortable with such morbid actions?
Do you want to know what I think?
No dead dad, no opinion.
I do NOT care if the topic of death makes you feel awkward.
Why should I care?
Do you know what I want to say to people when they say things like that?
I want to tell them my dad will never walk me down the aisle.
He will never give me away to the man I choose to spend my life with.
I will never dance with my dad ever again.
Or that the worst part is that I only have a few memories that actually include my dad.
It acknowledges the elephant in the room instead of ignoring it.
It makes the burden of grief less heavy on me.
Dead dad jokes do not mean that I am in any way over my loss.
The simple fact is that you never get over losing someone you loved so deeply.
It means I have chosen a way that makes my dads death tolerable and livable for me.
Death, unfortunately, is inevitable, so we might as well laugh while we still can.
