you're haunting me again
notes on grief, ghosts, and the b word.
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I dreamed of my father again last night. This descent into the sleepy realm always feels so real when he makes an appearance. So brash and in my face. As was my father in life. This morning, with the otherworldly altercation at the top of my mind, I started talking to my dad.
I wouldn’t say I’ve been speaking to him a lot lately, because that would be a s t r e t c h. But I have been talking more, mainly to say one of my favorite things as of late, “My therapist said I’m allowed to have boundaries.”
Like I told him the last time, if he wants to have contact with me, it will not look like this. I refuse it. I feel brave and bold in all the ways I wanted to be when he was still here. When it was still a supreme struggle to express myself, and many of our interactions exploded into yells and tears, and then, the worst of all, a sharp silence that strategically pierced my softest parts. He is not here to put me back together again.
Since my daddy died in 2017, so many lifetimes ago, my relationship with him has been a kaleidoscope of opposing emotions. When you water everything down, the conflict and circumstances filtered out, I am still a girl with a dead dad, and I have carried that title since I was 27. I am still trying to make sense of what it means not to have him in this world of the living, when he was barely in my world when he was alive.
I have talked to people from all around the world about grief. When Tifanei learned of me leading the Saddie Baddie Grief Gathering consistently twice a month for the past four years, she told me I had profound expertise. And these seem like such big words that I now want to hold onto, hold them close until they are a part of me. until it is just as easeful to believe as it is to doubt.
All things considered, grief feels like my proverbial cross to bear. The load I carry across my shoulders everywhere I go. To different countries. To the doctor. To the pages of my diary. To the club. To the kickback. To the dreamworld. To the altar. To the ancestors. In all the years I’ve known grief, its identity has never been concrete. It is fluid. always changing. not quite one thing, not quite the other. It is the in-between, begging to be seen.
This piece is more about the way we grow through grief than my dead daddy issues, which I wrote about quite recently. When we first meet grief, we want to rush the process, not taking the time to get to know it. Not taking the time to get to know who we are in relation to it. As with any connection we have, we are changed by it. And if we are not altered, even in the most minute of ways, we must reflect on whether we’re truly in relationship at all.
My dad is showing himself more, and instead of shutting up and shutting him out, I’m putting my foot down. I’m handling this grief in an absolutely different manner from what I’ve become accustomed to, and that is growth. It’s also been 3000 plus days that he’s been gone, and I’ve been grieving this specific loss. I realize tomorrow I could very well be writing hate mail in my journal about him, who knows.
That’s the scary thing about grief: we don’t know how it will impact us, and our human brains so desperately want to see into the future as a way to prepare and provide a sense of comfort.
Tifanei was right. I do have profound expertise. Over and over again in grief gatherings I lead and in personal conversations, I tell people I am not an expert in grief. But I am an expert in my own experience. We all have the permission and power to do this; it may just take a while.
When I calculate all the things it’s taken to arrive at this point, it all boils down to grief, like any and everything, being a practice. And like I said in the baddie briefing I sent to folks yesterday, practice doesn't make perfect, it makes progress. For me, I'm remembering progress is not about highlighting how far I have to go, but about celebrating how much it took me to get here in the first place.
question for reflection: What does progress look like in your grief walk?
🧵This essay is part of a larger tapestry. Follow the threads to more reflections like this one:
I am a creative nonfiction writer rooted in Mexico City, unpacking the tangled threads of life, death, and the beautifully messy moments in between. My essays explore grief, mental health, addiction, and the human condition, weaving together stories that leave you, the readers, feeling more connected and less alone. As a grief worker, I create intentional spaces for people worldwide to gather and share, guiding conversations that help us live more intimately with loss.
📸cover photo by Wolf Zimmermann
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Sending you so much love as a grieving daughter. He’s still here physically, but he’ll never be that same and that’s been hard.
🖤