Alex Leslie – Author

It’s been five months.

Five months since I got that dreaded phone call I had known was coming, but somehow was never truly prepared for. Five months since I was told you were gone forever.

Grief is a funny thing. It hits you in waves. Like standing on the shore, looking out at the choppy ocean. There’s the initial crash, which knocks you off your feet no matter how prepared you think you are. It envelopes you and leaves you gasping for breath as it quickly pulls you under.

But then you resurface. Friends and family throw you a lifeline and you are able to reorient yourself. It’s still a struggle, but you can breathe again. You mourn and you cry and you wallow because that’s what you have to do. Life, in a twist of ironic incongruity, goes on.

And then you get hit by the aftershocks. You’ll be starting to feel some semblance of normality, if such thing even exists, when out of nowhere those dangerous undercurrents snatch you up and drag you back under again. And it’s the simplest things that will trigger it.

Coming across a photo of you from before you got sick. The memory of a random silly joke you told me when I was kid. One of your treasured books sitting on my bookcase. All seemingly average events that inspire my grief to swallow me whole without warning.

The other day I was making lemon cheesecake for someone’s birthday. I’ve made this dish hundreds, if not thousands of times over the years. But this time was different. This time, it was the first time I had made it without you in my life. I would never again come to your house a few days before a family event to make the cheesecakes. I would never again stand in your kitchen, crushing biscuits and melting butter while you opened the packets of cream cheese and pulled out the lemons you had carefully selected specifically for this much-loved family dessert. I would never again smile as you snatched the spatula out of the mixing bowl so you could “taste test” the cream cheese mixture to make sure it was tart enough.

I tried to push the memories aside. But as I spooned the mixture into the two prepared cake pans, I felt my face grow wet. The memory of your cheeky grin as you licked the sweet, creamy batter from the spatula, savouring the pleasure of tasting a long-beloved treat. The sudden realisation that I would never share that simple, lovely experience with you again was devastating.

I’ve spent months with my life in a holding pattern. Trying to distract myself from the sadness and the pain. But everywhere I go, I am reminded of you. Most recently, the ever present advertisements for a certain upcoming holiday have made it impossible to avoid thinking about you. It’s like a cruel joke that every shop I go to; every television show I watch; every billboard on the side of the road; it’s all reminders of you.

I know eventually the grief will fade. It will never go completely, but it will eventually recede enough that the very thought of you will no longer be bittersweet. One day I will be able to remember you without feeling like I’m going to burst into tears.

But for now, I do my best day-by-day. I try to think of happy memories. I try to keep busy. I try to avoid thinking about those last months of your life too much. I try.

So, just in case I don’t feel up to saying it next week – Happy Father’s Day, Dad.

I love you forever.