Where It Begins

My Dad died. I know that's a blunt, devastating way to deliver that news, but that's how his life ended. One moment he was with us, and the next moment he was gone. There was no warning, no easing us into life without him, it happened fast and unexpected and he was just gone. I was uprooted in an instant, my life as I had known it was turned inside out, upside down, forever changed. There are books, blogs and videos about how to deal with grief, specifically the loss of a parent at a relatively young age. I had watched friends go through similar tragedies, their grief on display on social media with hundreds of comments of support, advice and wishes of peace and strength, in the same place I found myself when our time came. But what no one prepares you for and what I didn't expect, was that I would, in a way, lose myself too. Dad was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis when I was one and a half years old. One of the first symptoms of disease taking over his body was the loss of his balance, he would frequently walk into walls due to being uncoordinated and unable to control his motor function and the only logical explanation in my young mind was that he had gotten MS from the walls. His disease quickly progressed and almost a year later, he was paralyzed from the waist down, legally blind and having constant focal seizures in his left arm and hand (this means seizure activity focused to one specific area of the body.) I was only a toddler but I was Mom's sidekick, Dad's assistant caregiver and I grew up with that title so interlaced in my being that when he left us, the part of me that stitched together the only girl I had ever known, left too. A lifetime of responsibility, of worry, of looking for wheelchair parking spaces, accessible places to eat dinner, weekly visits to his nursing home to visit him with Mama when he got too sick to be at home, renting wheelchair accessible vans to take him to weddings, to church, to places that other families got to go without a care in the world. It all ended the moment he left us and I found myself searching for meaning in the vast emptiness of it all. Anyone that was lucky enough to know Dad, knew that he was a superhero. I know every child thinks their Dad hangs the sun and the moon in the sky and while I know mine didn't (it would have been hard from a wheelchair), he was the reason so many people stopped to appreciate their beauty. He was a fighter in every thing he did, a champion on the ball diamond and hockey rink, a Canadian Military Veteran, an inspiring friend, an incredible Father. He used to have a sticker on his wheelchair that read "I have MS, MS doesn't have me" and a tattoo on his wrist with the inscription "never surrender" and I can promise you, while he had his bad days, that man never let MS get the best of his sense of humour, his determination to continue to live the best he could for his family and all the ways he continued to motivate anyone who met him. I didn't just lose my Dad that day, I lost one of my biggest supporters, my inspiration, my superhero and parts of myself. The months that have followed his death are mostly a blur, so much heartache and confusion that I am still trying to put the pieces together. More food than we could ever eat and so much support I was blown away, overwhelmed, and no amount of thank you's seem like they could ever be enough.

I am going to fast forward to here and now, because if you decide to follow along for Mom and Dads story, to hear about my sister/best friend (and personal photographer @rachelarynphotography) and to see how this all came to be, then I am absolutely terrified but also so excited to have you on this journey with me because I think I have finally discovered that I will only heal if I let myself feel the fear, the pain, the uneasiness of existing in this world without Dad and pushing myself past the limits I had set for myself without even realizing it. I went from that little girl with so much responsibility thrust upon her without question, only acceptance for what was and nothing more, to a full grown woman feeling uncomfortable in her own skin with the aching need to find myself again. This is my journey of growth, of fear, of overcoming my own mind and of finding the pieces of me I've lost somewhere along the way.