The Complex Grief Of The Loss of a Narcissistic Father

Grief arises in many forms

It was the 13th anniversary of my family’s freedom from my father’s tight grasp this summer.

My mother protectively guarded us from plain sight, pulling all the strength she could find out of her frail, heart she could find to tell him we were leaving.

We were lucky enough to already have owned a second home which we rented out from time to time. Not so lucky that it was a mere 60-second walk from Dad.

My father was the type that composed everyone to go silent the second he entered a room. He demanded authority and respect from the moment you heard the loud thud of each stride he took.

Everything had to be a specific way, and no one dared to speak until spoken to. His charm and charisma breathed into the faces of everyone but ourselves.

Who knew what happened behind closed doors soared to such heights that he’d have them all in awe of his treasured life and persona he arrogantly spoke so highly of.

He’d never faced a job interview he hadn’t been awarded or a person who wasn’t swayed by his captivation. — Unless you’d met the dark passenger that lived behind his mask.

He was the person who made me realise “first impressions are everything” is the type of ignorance I’d never teach my own children. He was such a natural actor, he even had family members bowing to his audacities, insisting that the truth we unveiled was a dramatic version of reality.

I had lived a lifetime, yet was still a child. We packed up all our belongings, moved schools, and escaped to the city with no word.

We grew accustomed to our new life, having my mother’s eternal essence breathing life back into us from day one. I dissociated myself completely from him and that part of my life, even telling people I didn’t have a father when they asked about him. I believed it too.

A father wouldn’t fill his home with eggshells and his family with terror when we heard the front door open. A father wouldn’t leave you shaking to the core and crying out in agony when he placed his tight grip on your family.

Too young and weak to help their bones from being broken and mother’s rights ripped out from underneath her.

The fright and hostility from being my father’s daughter is what sticks with me the most. They both shared in my creation, so it only made sense to me that I’d share their personalities. What wasn’t so crystal clear was which traits I’d inherited.

Will I wreck everything I touch? Will everyone I touch be made from glass? Will my setbacks and losses be met with my spiralling rage? Am I a stranger to my own arrogance?

Now I’m growing up so fast, I realise that I know myself a lot more than I first thought. I’m human. I carry rage and have scars that no one can see. I’m an original invention, made up from the experiences I’ve gained, my dreams, the people I’ve met, and the morals I’ve been taught.

Me, my brothers and sister were lucky enough to spend most of our time with our mother. Over the years, she’d learnt many ways to keep us safe. To flee temporarily from the life she felt she was destined for.

She would take us out into nature, no matter the season, or the time. We’d all wrap up and go to the woods to make dens, climb trees and learn about the bounty that nature had to offer through my mother’s wisdom. For these moments, we were children. We were safe to be innocent and playful.

I am the essence of my mother — carrying myself with the same angelic strength she wears proudly on her sleeve. I’m blessed with compassion and understanding, having an inspiring muse that someone like my father wasn’t so lucky to have.

With the empathy I’ve acquired from my mother, I finally see the darkness I have running through my veins as it is. Human. I feel sorry for him for not having a strong support system and for teaching him the simple art of morals.

I see, and I feel the pain and confusion he had, as well as his inability to regulate his emotions. I’m not saying what he did could ever be excused, but life isn’t as black and white as we’re sometimes led to believe.

No one is all bad and no one can be all good. We’ll all make mistakes and we will all be the villain, inflicting others with pain unintentionally. We’ll act erratically, and we won’t understand why. We’ll trust the wrong people and we’ll put ourselves in danger.

But we’ll also be good. Without the heart-wrenching pain, I don’t think I would have opened myself up to the fact that life can be lived ecstatically.

With growing up and leaving that part of me behind, came forgiveness too. When I was 20 years old, and travelling with my ex boyfriend, I got back in touch with my dad who seemed very different and grown from the last time we saw each other. It’s hard to know what’s going on behind closed doors, but to my naked eye, I sensed a big change in him.

We spoke about our lives and our goals over the phone, and he helped me to even reach some of them, by gifting me a laptop (I see now, through guilt).

That’s how I also found out that he’d been diagnosed with cancer for the second time, the first he survived and lived to the fullest for 6 months. The next check-up he received the news that it had spread to his liver, this time a lot more aggressively. This time I was to find out he wouldn’t be so lucky with the war he was fighting within his thin frame.

March 31st, 2018

I received the call last night that he’d been admitted to a Hospice where he’d be spending the rest of his life he had left. I wasn’t going to take any chances and planned to visit the following morning, although every bone in me shook, and my mind refused to spare me with sleep.

When I entered the room, I was staring into a face I no longer recognised. He was as pale as a ghost, eyes bright yellow from the morphine and he was so skinny he looked as though he barely had any skin left to mask his bones. Cheek-bones so defined he looked as though he had two holes buried deep within his skull, ice cold to the core.

He was so frail I was afraid his fingers would snap when I picked up his hands and enclosed them in mine. I couldn’t remember him well like the rest, fortunate to have subconsciously erased all the horror, but with that came ridding myself of nostalgia. Amongst it all, there was good. The complex truth is, that he did love us.

The person that lay before me was a stranger, but my soul remembered him well. My soul ached with grief for the father I’d never had and the pain that he was met with by his own father. He couldn’t move his limbs and he couldn’t speak a word, but he could see, and he could hear.

I told him for the first time that I forgave him, and I was sorry too. For my own guilt-ridden mind, I was sorry for procrastinating so much about meeting him in person. I was sorry we would never be able to talk again in person and that I’d never have the chance to try to have a real relationship with him. I was sorry he’d never be able to see me grow as a woman, and that he couldn’t let me be a child. I was sorry for my own child, for she’d never be able to see the good in him too. I’m sorry that when she asks about her grandpa, my throat will swell and I won’t be able to find the words.

I’ve known for as long as I can remember that just because I have the same blood, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re family. His side of the family was never interested in us, even when we were newly born, so in that case; my beliefs stay grounded. But with parental blood, I realise it’s not that simple.

I am me because of the beautiful heart and teachings of my mother, but I’m also me because of my father. I will love my children because of the parts of myself I see, as well as the pieces of my parents I can see in them, too.

I told him about my plans to be a writer, the plans of my siblings and the unconditional love we all share for him, even though the pain was suffocating. His eyes widened, and tears dripped down his face at the thought.

Although he hasn’t been in my life for a while now, I still must make sense of him never being again. No matter what, he was a piece of me and now there’s a piece missing.

No matter how messed up your dark passenger was, I love you. And no matter what, I miss you and grieve for what I never could have. I refuse to be ashamed to feel love for those who may have not deserved it. The first step to process this complex guilt is to find the flicker of light in the darkest of corners.

I love you, father, narcissism and all

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