When it comes to grief, I’ve always struggled with finding the right words. It doesn’t feel like there’s anything I could say that would fully explain the complexities of what it means to grieve a loved one. The unimaginable pain. The way it takes every ounce of your energy to take a breath sometimes. The happy times followed by a debilitating wave of guilt.
Nothing feels right.
My dad’s name is Jason Murphy. He was the kindest, most selfless person you would ever meet. He loved to unironically listen to the kids’ radio stations. He knew his way around a kitchen and loved to prepare extravagant meals. He was a cellist with a complicated relationship to music. He was a southpaw pitcher and probably could have gone professional if he really wanted to, but he opted for playing catch with us in the yard…but more often, in the house. He would walk out of the house only for us to realize hours later that he had gone to a hardware store across the state line. He cut his finger on a soda can as a kid and couldn’t straighten it all the way. He died in 2017 after an unbelievably heroic battle with cancer.
I could talk and tell stories about him for hours, but the hardest part is finding someone who will listen without looking at me with giant, sad, pitiful eyes. Finding someone who won’t do everything in their power to change the subject. Finding someone who won’t say, “you’re just SO strong,” in a small voice. Since when is strength equated with a lack of expressing sadness? I couldn’t disagree with that more.
I’m just trying to tell stories about my dad the way that I’d tell them about my mom, who I am unbelievably lucky to still have in my life. I want to talk about him, and I want to hear other people talk about him. I don’t want his memory to die with him. It doesn’t feel right to move forward with my life without him.
Unfortunately, for the first couple years after he died, no one wanted to talk to me about him, so they opted to not talk to me at all. Not just classmates, but teachers. I felt invisible. I felt like a stranger in my own school and hometown. I was dealing with the crushing weight of grieving by myself surrounded by people who pretended it wasn’t happening. I knew it felt wrong, but I didn’t know if anything could possibly ever feel right in a world without my dad.
So I never spoke up.
Instead, I shut down. I lost my entire personality and sense of identity, all while people were telling me how “mature” and “brave” I was. I didn’t recognize myself anymore. It was so bad that I don’t remember very much of the second half of high school. The world around me continued while mine was frozen in time. It was exhausting trying to cater to the people who didn’t just experience something traumatic, so eventually, I stopped talking to them, too. And they let me. No one noticed that I wasn’t myself anymore. No one checked on me. I was completely apathetic, and I was just trying to survive.
I want to be very clear that in no way do I intend to accuse or place blame on anyone for what happened to me. My story, my grief, and my pain are completely real, and I have spent years validating my truth while also forgiving the circumstances I was in at the time. Life isn’t completely black and white. I was angry for a long time after I pulled myself out of my apathy, but I don’t feel that way anymore. At least, not all of the time. I still have a lot of healing to do, but I’m doing my best, and I’ve given myself the grace to be okay with that, even if it doesn’t feel quite right all the time.
My name is Cate Murphy. I’m a graduate student living in Boston. I really love listening to bad 2000’s/2010’s pop. I know my way around a kitchen and I love to bake extravagant desserts. I’m an amateur singer, pianist, and guitarist with a complicated relationship to music. I was a left-handed volleyball player and too often chose to practice in the house. Sometimes, I’ll go for walks with no intended destination and just continue until I get bored or tired. I have two moles and a vein sticking out on my left leg that looks like a natural smiley face.
I am proudly my father’s daughter. I miss him more than I’d ever be able to put into words.
I wish he knew about my life now. I wish he knew that I went to pharmacy school because of him and that I made a name for myself at a large university in a big city. But he’ll never know about any of it, and that breaks me. I’m so proud of how far I have come, but my grief has never left me. I don’t ever want it to. Even my best days don’t feel quite right without him, and I don’t think I want them to feel right.
Through my blog series, I’ll be delving deeper into what it was like to grieve in a place where I wasn’t given the space to grieve openly. I’ll be vulnerable and share my absolute lowest points alongside what has helped me heal. I’ll advocate for necessary grief resources and fight to make sure no child ever has to experience what I did.
I’m still on my grief journey myself, and I will be forever. Nothing ever feels quite right. I’m not sure it ever will. And that’s what I’m here to talk about.