How old were you when you became truly aware of the difference between preparedness and readiness? I have been exposed to death from a young age, and now, on a daily basis as a licensed funeral director. But, I didn’t become truly aware of the difference between preparedness and readiness until my father died almost 2 years ago this month.
He had been sick for most of my life. He wasn’t a bad man, he just wasn’t the father my brother and I needed. Our relationship was complicated, and grieving him was, too. It still is.
I spent decades prepared for the call telling me that he had died, but experienced no feelings of readiness the morning I finally got the call from my uncle telling me that my Dad had died. Within six hours of getting that call from my uncle, I was on a flight from home in Boston to Las Vegas, prepared to deal with whatever came next. Turns out, I wasn’t really ready for what came next either, though.
I’m a task-oriented person. I expected that I would be all-business in handling tasks. I had a limited amount of time in town, and my brother, sister-in-law and I had to clean up a literal lifetime of mess and disorder. When I’m in business-mode, I experience tunnel vision. I expected to come out on the other side feeling accomplished, drained, and unable to avoid my grief. I was accomplished, I was certainly drained, but I didn’t feel anything else. There was no pain, no agony. No aguish, just… nothing.
Startled by the absence of feeling, I sat, uncomfortably, with that for a while. I wanted to learn what that feeling of nothing had to teach me. Was I a terrible person for grieving the wrong way? Was I an imposter for spending years helping people face their own grief, but had no idea how to face it myself?
Of all the things I wasn’t feeling, I missed the part that I became grateful for once I finally picked-up on it. I didn’t feel angry anymore. I didn’t feel resentful anymore. With that, feeling nothing kind of became the greatest thing I could have experienced at the time. It was a gift I never knew I could achieve, and one I never thought could come from my Dad. But, there it was – nothing, and gratitude for that fact.
It took me a while, but I was able to come to this conclusion: The absence of feeling in grief is still a feeling. We can feel everything and nothing all at once. And, if this resonates with you, however this looks for you today is ok.
