My dad's dead.
The whole time that our family was going through my dad's cancer ordeal, DABDA was my emotional guideline. Every time I felt a wave of overwhelming emotions - be it anger, or depression, or the silent bargains I made, up to that bittersweet moment of resigned acceptance - I think, "It's okay. It's part of the DABDA process. Feel it. Let it through." DABDA was my prayer.
DABDA is the emotional process we go through when faced with death to, well, overcome death. It is for us, the living. We have to define, categorize, and make sense of the undefinable grief that impaired us since death and loss knocked at our doors. In no particular order, we go through different levels of Denial and Anger, Bargained for better odds - longer time, more money, miracles and angels - then we get utterly Depressed, until we arrive at Acceptance. Some though, don't get there. Some get stuck at being angry, at denial, while some give in - for a lack of a better option - and accept.
It was a Thursday when my dad died. A typhoon locally named Glenda just hit the country, and left most places without power. I broke a plate, accidentally, while preparing dinner that night. Fifteen minutes later, my mom gave me THE call. Maybe, superstitions too are real. I also bought fish that day. It was a random Thursday like any other, except my dad died that night. When my sister and I got home, I kissed my dead father on the forehead, and told him I love him. His forehead felt warm, but his hands were icy cold. He had a damp smell about him, like the stench of mud in the rain. Each second of that last moment was unsuperstitiously real.
I thought of DABDA again the day we buried my dad. I made a mental checklist: have I gone through all of them yet? Already? Will I be okay? I wondered if I'm stuck at anger? Is my mother? I can only imagine the pain that my mother is going through right now. Are my brother and sister going to be fine? I rehashed the most painful memories of my father's last days - withered, and unable to speak - and I still feel a pang of anger. Why my dad? We could have used more time as a family, you know. He was just 52.
With my dad at peace, seven feet under now, acceptance seems the only rational option left. Yet, it's hard to accept something that seems surreal - so real - when it happened. The way his cancer progressed too fast, too soon. How my father regressed and gave in to death too soon, too real. When time is not on our side, we feel powerless. After all, if DABDA is a prayer, time is god.
But the night we buried my father, and when the fact that we will never ever see him again - ever forever again - sunk in, acceptance didn't prove powerful enough. My prayer isn't working anymore. My father gone is not any less painful just because I have accepted it, just because we have.
In fact, of all, I find that acceptance was the easiest to do. With the strength of our brain's plasticity, and our heart's resiliency, our capacity to accept adversities seems instinctive. Humans as species survived because we are extremely well-adaptive. We'll be fine. I'll be fine too, I guess.
There must be more to acceptance then. I find that DABDA's end is neither acceptance nor to be fine. It is not a linear process of well-orchestrated denoument, with the promise of an orgasmic catharsis in the end. Death is as messy as living. And we, the living, are left to deal with the mess of life's uncertainties and possibilities. This is hard enough even with your family complete, and all together. So, why did my father have to die again?
Death, and overcoming it, is not the end. Far from a fresh start even. Living with it is the whole process. There is no overcoming death. There is only living it.
Somebody, please, tell me how this is done.
The whole time that our family was going through my dad's cancer ordeal, DABDA was my emotional guideline. Every time I felt a wave of overwhelming emotions - be it anger, or depression, or the silent bargains I made, up to that bittersweet moment of resigned acceptance - I think, "It's okay. It's part of the DABDA process. Feel it. Let it through." DABDA was my prayer.
DABDA is the emotional process we go through when faced with death to, well, overcome death. It is for us, the living. We have to define, categorize, and make sense of the undefinable grief that impaired us since death and loss knocked at our doors. In no particular order, we go through different levels of Denial and Anger, Bargained for better odds - longer time, more money, miracles and angels - then we get utterly Depressed, until we arrive at Acceptance. Some though, don't get there. Some get stuck at being angry, at denial, while some give in - for a lack of a better option - and accept.
It was a Thursday when my dad died. A typhoon locally named Glenda just hit the country, and left most places without power. I broke a plate, accidentally, while preparing dinner that night. Fifteen minutes later, my mom gave me THE call. Maybe, superstitions too are real. I also bought fish that day. It was a random Thursday like any other, except my dad died that night. When my sister and I got home, I kissed my dead father on the forehead, and told him I love him. His forehead felt warm, but his hands were icy cold. He had a damp smell about him, like the stench of mud in the rain. Each second of that last moment was unsuperstitiously real.
I thought of DABDA again the day we buried my dad. I made a mental checklist: have I gone through all of them yet? Already? Will I be okay? I wondered if I'm stuck at anger? Is my mother? I can only imagine the pain that my mother is going through right now. Are my brother and sister going to be fine? I rehashed the most painful memories of my father's last days - withered, and unable to speak - and I still feel a pang of anger. Why my dad? We could have used more time as a family, you know. He was just 52.
With my dad at peace, seven feet under now, acceptance seems the only rational option left. Yet, it's hard to accept something that seems surreal - so real - when it happened. The way his cancer progressed too fast, too soon. How my father regressed and gave in to death too soon, too real. When time is not on our side, we feel powerless. After all, if DABDA is a prayer, time is god.
But the night we buried my father, and when the fact that we will never ever see him again - ever forever again - sunk in, acceptance didn't prove powerful enough. My prayer isn't working anymore. My father gone is not any less painful just because I have accepted it, just because we have.
In fact, of all, I find that acceptance was the easiest to do. With the strength of our brain's plasticity, and our heart's resiliency, our capacity to accept adversities seems instinctive. Humans as species survived because we are extremely well-adaptive. We'll be fine. I'll be fine too, I guess.
There must be more to acceptance then. I find that DABDA's end is neither acceptance nor to be fine. It is not a linear process of well-orchestrated denoument, with the promise of an orgasmic catharsis in the end. Death is as messy as living. And we, the living, are left to deal with the mess of life's uncertainties and possibilities. This is hard enough even with your family complete, and all together. So, why did my father have to die again?
Death, and overcoming it, is not the end. Far from a fresh start even. Living with it is the whole process. There is no overcoming death. There is only living it.
Somebody, please, tell me how this is done.