Six Years Later and This Is What Grief Looks Like 

(Spoiler: It’s Messy)

Grief isn’t just sobbing into your pillow or staring dramatically out a window like a moody character in an underfunded indie flick. It’s not just tears and sad playlists. It’s standing in the shower for 45 minutes until the water runs cold and you start wondering if grout can judge you. It’s zoning out so hard you forget your own name and end up washing your hair with body wash and brushing your teeth with your feelings. It’s having full-blown conversations with your dog because he’s the only one who isn’t offering unsolicited advice—or telling you to “stay strong” when you’re two seconds from drop-kicking a casserole.

My mom? She rage-cleans at 2 a.m.—scrubbing like she’s trying to bleach the pain right out of existence. Me? I disassociate like it’s a competitive sport. Some people lose themselves in a fog of bad TV and takeout. Others dive headfirst into a keg of Budweiser or convince themselves they can keep up with Snoop Dogg and Willie Nelson—like grief is something you can outdrink or outsmoke. Spoiler alert: it’s not. Grief doesn’t get high. It waits. Stone cold sober. And it will wreck your shit on a random Tuesday.

I’ve been dragging this grief beast behind me for six years, ever since I lost my dad. People like to chirp out clichés like, “Time heals all wounds.” No, it doesn’t. Liar. Time just teaches you how to walk with a limp and smile through your teeth, so you don’t make people uncomfortable. Grief doesn’t fade. It mutates. One day, it’s background static. The next, it’s a throat punch in the middle of a Target run.

Sometimes it’s bearable. Manageable. A dull hum you can tune out. But then? It hits. Hard. Like hearing AC/DC on the radio and suddenly—bam—you’re eight years old again, riding shotgun in the silver Jeep, screaming “Big Balls” with your dad like maniacal little hellraisers. One second, you’re cruising, the next you’re ugly-crying so hard you have to pull over because the memory sucker-punched your soul without warning.

And grief? Oh, it loves a good ambush. Like in the grocery store, where one innocent glance at a pack of Pinwheels turns into a full-blown breakdown in aisle 9. If I’d known I only had nine more birthdays to stack that ridiculous tower of 60 Pinwheels for him, I would’ve stacked 600. I would’ve shoved every last one into his hands and dared him to say no—just to see him smile, just to have one more laugh. And yeah, I still would’ve given him that jar of dirt he was older than, with zero remorse.

Then there are the Queen Anne Chocolate Covered Cherries. I’ve bought a box every Christmas since he passed. Still unopened. Can’t eat them. Can’t not buy them. That’s grief: a cursed tradition wrapped in cheap plastic and sugar-coated memory. A ritual I can’t touch without coming undone. An evil ghost that lives in a red box and snickering sinisterly every time I pretend I’m okay.

My dad and I had a sense of humor so dark the nurses at St. Mary’s Hospital didn’t know whether to laugh or report us. I used to say, “You should’ve asked for a blow job,” just to see their faces freeze—and he’d grin like the proud, camo-loving walking forest he was. We weren’t some Hallmark channel father-daughter dream team. We had scars. Silences. Stubbornness so sharp it could've been classified as a weapon—hell, we spilled enough blood to start a true crime podcast. But that last year? We fought tooth and nail. Clawed out the good with bloodied hands and left the bad to bleed out in the dirt. And damn right, we fucking earned that shit.

So, when someone dares to say, “It’s been long enough—you should be over it,” I smile sweetly and hand them a rusty spoon. For their tongue removal. (Figuratively. Mostly. Depending on how much sleep or caffeine I’ve had.)

Grief doesn’t come with a timeline. There’s no expiration date. No finish line to cross so you can move on and start spouting toxic positivity in matching yoga pants. Some days, it’s a dull ache. Other days, it hits like a WWE takedown in the forest flinging your dumb ass out of your deer stand. You don’t “get over” it. You adjust. You patch yourself up with duct tape, WD-40, and sarcasm, and pray the whole thing holds until bedtime. It’s what I do. It’s what my dad did. The same man who swore that duct tape and stubbornness could fix anything—except this.

Grief isn’t weakness. It’s what’s left behind when love refuses to pack up and go quietly. It lingers. It demands attention. It shows up uninvited with muddy boots and refuses to wipe its feet (and then Mom gets the bleach out). And just so we’re clear? I’ve got enough bite to chew through the next person who offers me a Pinterest quote and a pity smile. And that? That’s not happening on my watch.

So here I sit—six years later. Still feels like it happened yesterday. Still slices like it never stopped.

I say your name like a threat to the silence. I keep your stories alive not because I’m sentimental—but because if I don’t, this world might forget the wild bastard who gave me half of my DNA. And that? That’s not happening on my watch.

You were the kind of man who blew up semi-truck tire tubes, duct-taped them together like some redneck MacGyver, and rolled down the dunes at Silver Lake like giggling human shrapnel. The same lunatic who took his five-year-old daughter ice skating in the middle of the 1978 blizzard—because she wanted to be Dorothy Hamill, bowl haircut and all.

That’s the legacy: chaos, heart, and just enough recklessness to make life worth remembering.

And when life kicks my teeth in, I hear your voice, gravel and all:

“You’ve got this, kid.”

And sometimes, I spit blood and whisper back,

“Yeah, Old Man—but your White Sox are still a goddamn embarrassment.”

Here’s to the camo-clad storm of a man who dragged me through hell, kicked me when I needed it, and somehow still made me laugh through the worst of it.

Raise those fucking glasses! Drop a shot of Johnnie Walker Black. And if you don’t have it? He’d call you Yuppie Scum, steal your drink, and remind you that grief doesn't get softer—it just gets quieter unlike his daughter.