ANNIE DALBY

The month of June is, among other things, the time of year when we celebrate our fathers on Father’s Day. It is another of the many occasions with the potential to trigger feelings of grief and loss. Having lost my own dad five years ago, I anticipate the experience of my own twinges—and perhaps stabs—of sadness.

The month of June is, among other things, the time of year when we celebrate our fathers on Father’s Day. It is another of the many occasions with the potential to trigger feelings of grief and loss. Having lost my own dad five years ago, I anticipate the experience of my own twinges—and perhaps stabs—of sadness.

Yet, as a mental health therapist who has spent many years working with the bereaved, I also know there are many expressions on the face of father-loss, so many nuanced aspects to this kind of grief. Above all, there are fathers we grieve, and fathers who grieve, and these thoughts are dedicated to them as June swells and recedes.

I have held space with so many clients who have mourned the loss of a dad, enough to know it is often not just who our fathers were, but who they were not that breaks the heart. We grieve the man who amazed and the one who disappointed; the man we marveled at and the one we hoped for. I have been told that “my father was a great man,” and “my father failed me.” Some clients have been doted upon by their fathers; some have been beaten. Some have been taught, guided, cherished and loved; some have been abandoned, abused, neglected, and belittled. Some clients grieve a father who lifted them up and pointed the way. Others grieve the one who diminished and then left them floundering.

There are individuals who will pass the “Father’s Day” display at the local Hallmark shop and immediately sob, overwhelmed by the pain of loss. There are also those who will pass the same section and feel a sense of relief that a card is no longer needed. In this moment, I think of my maternal grandmother. Her father left when she was an infant. A soldier in World War I, he was called to battle and died there. She is gone now, too, but I’m left to wonder if my grandmother stopped in the Hallmark store to grieve the father she never knew.

So many reasons we grieve our fathers. So many reasons we cry.

I want to mention not only fathers we grieve, but fathers who grieve. I have worked with men who have mourned adult children and teenagers, small children and infants. Some grieve for a stillborn child, or for those who were miscarried. Some men ache on Father’s Day because their children died, others because their children were never born. Let us remember dads who carry the heaviness of loss in their own broken hearts, who mourn as fathers who are living out a painful reality of fatherhood. On Father’s Day, let us honor them and pray for them and support them.

Whatever way you grieve on Father’s Day, I pray you meet Christ on the road. May you be surrounded by people who touch you with the compassion of Christ, the peace of Christ, the healing love of Christ. May you feel the prayer knitted into these words, the one intended for you. May it meet you where you are and wrap tenderly around your broken heart and fill its cracks with comfort, strength, solace, and support.

And may our deceased fathers be at peace. May their memory be for a blessing.

Annie is a Bereavement Clinician at Cornerstone of Hope Columbus.