Exploring complex grief and how to offer condolences

I was alone in the elevator of a tall public housing building in downtown Raleigh, when a woman entered the elevator. I was on yet another trip to deliver a shopping cart full of my father’s belongings to the community room for the residents to re-home. She saw me with the shopping cart and asked, “are you the daughter of the man that passed away?”

“I am,” I confirmed.

“I’m sorry about that. He was a nice man. I knew him,” she told me.

“I didn’t,” I replied.

Her eyes softened and she said “I’m sorry about that too.”

While many people have tried to understand, offer comforting words and condolences, it is this brief exchange that I have found to be the most comforting.

Yes, I am grieving, but my grief is complicated.

The brief history

For a little background, my family left my father when I was 4 years old. He was an alcoholic and our home life was not great. I have next to no memories of him. We only found out that he had returned to the U.S. (we were living abroad) when, at the age of 8, I called my grandfather to wish him a happy birthday and my father answered the phone.

My grandfather passed away in November of 2019. Sitting in his hospice room, I learned that my father was living in some sort of subsidized government housing in downtown Raleigh.

All this is to say that I grew up with an estranged father. I knew nothing about him and he only knew what my grandfather shared with him.

I have spent my life grieving the relationship that never was. Watching friends with their two happy parents, going on family vacations or picnics in the park wondering what that would be like, while I went home to my only parent, my mom. As a single parent raising three small children, I don’t know how my mom didn’t chuck any of us out the window. When things get frustrating, I can take a minute and hand the reins over to my husband. That is not a luxury she had.

We were supported, given tools to cope with and understand why we didn’t have a father like the other kids. She took us all to therapy, both as a family and individually. She also took us to support groups for children of alcoholic parents. What I remember most is the ice cream from the hospital cafeteria.

For a long time I was angry with him. Some of that anger lingers and bubbles up when I least expect it. For a long time I wondered what was wrong with me. For a long time I dreaded the possibility that I would have to see him.

When we moved to Raleigh in 2018, I knew that he lived here, though we never made contact. He hadn’t been a part of my life for 30 years. I suppose I could have asked my grandfather more about him or how to get in contact with him, but I didn’t nor did my father ever try to reach out. I carried the fear that I may run into him on the street or worse, have to introduce my children to him or explain who he was.

That brings us to today

A few weeks ago my brother called while I was sitting in a class at Wake Tech attempting to understand cellular respiration. When I texted him a reply that I was in class and couldn’t talk, he said to call as soon as I could. That was enough to set off red flags.

I excused myself from class and called my brother from that empty, echoing hallway on the third floor of the Biology building. The news he shared was that my father had been moved to hospice and only had a day or two left to live. If I wanted to see him, I had to go now.

My whole life I imagined getting a call like this and would wonder what I would do when the time came. Would I be given a chance to say goodbye or not? Would I want to? I could never come up with an answer. I told myself I would cross that bridge when I came to it. Now, with the bridge in front of me, I still didn’t know what to do.

Shaking, I walked back into class, packed up my backpack, gave my professor a heads up and left. I drove home in stunned silence. Unable to reach my husband, I sat on the couch, restless and not knowing what to do with myself. Sitting at home alone waiting for someone to show up was not an option. I walked across the street to my neighbor, at first not even managing to get any words out. She made me coffee and I slowly sputtered out the situation. She helped me in those early hours to begin processing my feelings.

Did I want to go to hospice? What did I want to say?

“I forgive you. F#$% you. I’m sorry your life was so hard. I turned out well in spite of you.”

If I said what I was really feeling, did that make me a horrible person?

I did go to hospice the next day. My husband followed, unsure how to support me in that moment. It took me a minute to even enter the room. He reassured me that, even though we drove 30 minutes, I didn’t have to go in. We could leave. In the end I felt compelled to go in, that I would regret it if I didn’t.

I walked in. A friend of his was asleep on the couch. He, having not eaten for 4 days at this point, looked frail, long gray hair splayed on the pillow, eyes staring blankly towards the window. Each breath he took accompanied by a gurgling sound, just another sign of his body shutting down. He didn’t know I was there.

Overcome, I turned around, walked past my husband and straight out of the room. I walked as fast as I could through the maze of hallways and out the front door to a bench by the entrance. I sat down and completely fell apart. For 10 minutes I had no words, just pure, raw emotions, paralyzed by the gravity of the situation.

The next day, my uncle sent the message that he had passed. I never said anything to my father so the universe will have to deliver the words on my behalf.

I’m not sad

The thing that is hard to explain is that, while I have a plethora of emotions and buckets of tears, I am not sad that he has finally passed. That fact feels very clinical. Still struggling to identify all my feelings, I have currently landed on:

Grief for a relationship that never was

Relief that the idea of him no longer hangs over my head

Guilt at my aforementioned relief

Worry that I’m cold and heartless for having these feelings

I am not sad. For all the well meaning people, offering their condolences and apologies, wishing me to never feel sadness again, my feelings are complex. I have spent my entire life mourning the loss of this man. I know I am not the only one with an estranged parent or a complicated relationship for which death comes as a relief.

So if you happen to know of someone experiencing a complex loss, don’t offer simple condolences. They are not what we need. The kind eyes of the woman in the elevator, sorry for the relationship that never was and an unspoken understanding that relationships are complicated, she nailed it. Instead of simple condolences, be the person who provides space for those experiencing complex emotions without judgment. Even if just through the simplicity of a kind look. If the woman I met ever reads this, I hope she knows the impact her simple words had.