After losing my dad, what made going back to normal, daily life easier was knowing that I didn’t have to explain my situation to anyone. Everyone knew about my loss. Just a year later, however, I began college where hardly anyone knew. Losing my dad was never something I easily broadcasted to people. I’m naturally a private person and don’t like to talk about my personal life unless specifically asked about something. Meeting new people knowing they had no idea about my last year made it nearly impossible for me to see these people as new true friends.
Losing my dad was obviously a major turning point in my life. I accredit much of my strength through that time to my friends. They stayed by my side from the first day and throughout my continuous battle with grief. Not only did they help me as I learned to move on and change, they also knew my dad. My dad was, and is, such a big part of me and who I am and them knowing him meant they knew that part of me. My sensitivity, my empathy and my strength are all traits I get from my dad. When my friends and I all went our separate ways for college, I lost my close and constant contact with them and, inevitably, felt like I was losing a part of my dad, a part of myself.
These new friends I was meeting had never met my dad. They would never meet my dad. All they knew of me was my life at that current time. As a result, I was reluctant to consider these people as close friends. They weren’t there when my life changed, they weren’t there when I needed my friends the most. On top of that, I felt like I had to let go of that part of my life with my dad because they didn’t know him and they didn’t know me when he was around. It took me almost two years to open up to my new college friends. When you live with people for semester after semester, late night heart-to-hearts are bound to happen, especially with a group of young girls. In these heart-to-hearts, I realized these girls wanted to know about my dad. They wanted to know about my journey with grief. I just never let down my guard or let them fully in enough for them to try and understand. Of course, I still am weary to think of my college friends as being as close to me as my home friends, but knowing they wanted to learn about my loss and empathize with it, allowed me to let our relationships grow instead of remaining stagnant at a distance.
