Running Away

Three years ago, my dad died.

I spent the final week of his life with my mom and siblings, going back and forth to the hospital in my small hometown of Blackfoot, Idaho.

As I look back now, it is interesting how I was handling the whole situation. I arrived on a Sunday. My dad was in the hospital, still lucid and talking to us for short times. He wasn’t eating, and the news from the doctors went from bad to worse. I felt completely out of control. I didn’t know how to process my grief. So I did what any normal person would do—I ran away and started controlling the things I could.

I began using a journaling app so I could make family yearbooks. Yes, all those years of procrastinating my pictures and memories…now was a perfect time to get going. I worked diligently, completing page after page after page. My mom mentioned that her car was in the shop for repairs. I knew it was my next task. I had my sister drop me off so I could get my mom’s car and get it back home. I got up early and got myself ready, with makeup and jewelry and all the things that could distract me. I had to keep going. I kept looking for anything else I could do. Whatever it was, I would do it. I started going through my old things still kept at home. My decisions were swift and easy. Before long, I had a large donation pile ready to go.

I drove with my mom to the hospital, met with a family friend to talk about life insurance, paid bills, and just kept running. I could not stop.

We brought Dad home from the hospital on Thursday. His death was inevitable. I felt restless. Simultaneously, I wanted to stay at his bedside and sprint away as fast as I could. There was nothing I could do but wait.

Friday morning he took his final breaths and left this life. The moment I dreaded had arrived. The grief was so thick that I was suffocating. It was too much. I needed to run.

After a few minutes, we started talking about dates for the funeral. Yes. Please. Decisions to be made were a welcome distraction. I ran from my despair and got to business.

On Sunday I flew home and stayed busy with my normal life. Then Brian and I went on an already-planned trip to Boston and NYC. I kept running from the sadness, pushing it away.

But my emotions couldn’t be outrun. They caught up with me, appearing in a variety of ways. I lost my appetite and didn’t eat much. I yelled at my kids and got very upset over minuscule things. I tried controlling my oldest daughter’s every move. I cried in the car a lot. Sometimes the grief would bubble up and out in the middle of dinner or mid-conversation with an old friend. I still felt so out of control.

I was afraid of the despair I felt over my dad’s death. I was pretty good at running away from negative emotions. I had done it my whole life! Incredibly, I didn’t shed a tear when my most beloved dog died. I never cried when I got in trouble as a kid—I felt like it showed weakness, and I wouldn’t do it. But here, as a 43-year-old woman, I was tired of feeling out of control. Yet I was sure that if I stopped running away and let the grief come, it would never leave. Could people really die of broken hearts? For a moment, the idea actually seemed plausible, and it was terrifying.

So I started learning about emotions and our brains. The knowledge that emotions are simply vibrations in your body was mind-blowing. Emotions are just vibrations. I was sick of running, sick of avoiding all things negative. I had had enough.

I stopped running away.

Remarkably, the sadness I feel when I think of my dad’s death doesn’t stay permanently. It comes and goes…like the waves in an ocean. I feel it happening, but I’m no longer out of control. Letting myself feel all the emotions has calmed my mind and my heart.

It will do it for you, too.