Honoring my dad: Lessons of grief & change

It’s been three years since my dad passed. And as I sit with that reality, I’m struck by how much has changed, and how much still feels exactly the same.

I mean, I’m still me… but I’m also still adjusting to being me without a dad.

I still wake up every morning in the same bed, in the same house, and move through many of the same routines. Some days I wake up with joy and purpose, determined to make the most of this life I get to live. Other days, I want to stay in bed and watch TV all day.

And that’s the reality of grief.

It doesn’t arrive as one big wave and then disappear. It weaves itself quietly into your everyday life, manifesting in ways you never quite expect.

Since losing my dad, I’ve gained a lot of clarity. I learned very quickly who I can depend on… and who I can’t. So-called friends and coworkers were nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, one of my dad’s childhood friends (someone who hadn’t seen me since I was a toddler) dropped everything to come be with us.

For better or worse, grief has a way of revealing people’s true colors. And while I’m grateful for the clarity, it doesn’t bring my dad back.

What I wouldn’t give for one more hug. I wish, more than anything, I could just wrap my arms around him, tell him I love him, and thank him for being the very best dad he could be.

The truth is, my dad and I had a complicated relationship.

For a while we were close… and then we weren’t. In fact, through most of my teenage years and early adulthood, we butted heads. We were both firstborns. Both stubborn as all heck. Both always right and never wrong. (If you know, you know.)

But underneath all of that, we loved each other.

We just didn’t always know how to show it.

For years, I spent so much energy wishing he would be different, and then feeling disappointed when he wasn’t. Now, all I wish is that I could go back and embrace every bit of him exactly the way he was. My dad was kind to everyone, most often smiling and laughing. He had faith that God would provide, even when things felt impossible. All he wanted was his loved ones to forgive freely and love deeply. I just had a hard time seeing it while he was here.

That’s one of the cruelest parts of grief.

As if the loss itself isn’t hard enough, grief also brings a collection of regrets… the kind we’ll never get the chance to fix because the person is gone.

And maybe that’s why this season of my life has shaped the work I do today.

Grief is one of the most profound seasons of change we can walk through. It doesn’t follow a timeline. It doesn’t move neatly from beginning to end. Some days you feel strong. Other days you feel like you’re right back at the beginning.

That’s exactly why I talk about life in seasons. Because change- especially painful change- is rarely linear.

So today, I honor my dad the best way I know how. By continuing to grow. By loving the people in my life a little more openly. And by guiding other women through their own “messy middles” when life doesn’t go the way they expected.

And I just keep on living, like my dad would if he could, one day at a time.