Reflections on my Father's Death: Navigating Grief and Abuse

Originally written January 4, 2023.
In one year, I saw two influential men in my life pass away. The first was my long-time mentor, David Bradley, and the second was my father, who passed away on December 24, 2022 at 7:45am. For those who know me and my relationship with my father, this is complicated.

On one hand, my father is responsible for many of the values and traits that have allowed me to lead Higher Ground. He was one of my greatest mentors, fostering my love for music, martial arts, and physical fitness. However, he was also my primary abuser, mentally, verbally, and physically abusive, and sexually harassing me. He also subjected my mother to domestic abuse.

So when I received the news of his death, it was complex to process and continues to be a complicated mess. The death of a father is hard enough, but when he is also your abuser, it adds another layer of complexity. I felt rage that he passed, and I didn't get to see him in person because we were banned from visiting him. I felt irritation that he passed away on Christmas Eve and, once again, my father found a way to ruin a time of celebration. I also felt at peace that this chapter of my life could close and I could move on. I felt guilty that I decided to remove my mom from his life. I felt grief that I would never see him again. I felt liberation that my dad is no longer suffering from Parkinson's and the dementia that had begun to affect his mind.

But the complexity doesn’t end there.

I had planned to go to the Philippines to grieve my father's death, but I was robbed of that opportunity when I discovered that he would be cremated in just three days. This wasn't enough time for me to make arrangements to travel. During those three days, my mom and I weren't even sure if we would be allowed to attend the funeral. At the wake, my mom told me that there were barely any attendees.

To make matters worse, my father's money has been taken, and my mom and I have been removed from his accounts. Our house has been taken over, and I will likely never have any of my father's possessions. For the past week, I have spent hours on the phone with my mom daily, trying to figure out how to protect her and claim what is rightfully hers.

This wasn't entirely surprising, as the last time I saw my dad in person was in April 2019, when I helped my mom escape. Certain family members were upset with me for taking my mom away from dad and abandoning him. But despite all of that, I have forgiven my dad and have stayed in touch with him. You can read more about that in another one of my blog posts here.

Helping my mom escape does not mean I wanted my dad to suffer. My mom and I called his family the day after we left, letting them know they had to take care of my dad because he was sick. I stayed in contact with them, asking them to keep me posted. Then, eventually, they stopped talking to me. My mom and I didn't know where my dad was for a while. Until finally, we found him in a care home. We eventually found out that we weren't allowed to visit him in person. My mom wouldn't have known my dad had passed away if it hadn't been for the nurses at the care home who decided to do the right thing. I only knew because my mom told me, and a day later, one of my cousins let me know.

Days before he passed, I video-chatted with him for his birthday on December 21. He had a cake from my mom and me. Yes, my mother. Because while my mom no longer wants to be abused, it doesn't mean she loves my dad any less. Leaving my dad doesn't mean we want to be disconnected. It's the complexity of loving someone abusive: you set healthy boundaries, so you don't lose yourself, but you still want to care for and keep a relationship with them.

But my dad was not mentally present on his birthday. He didn't talk and just stared at the screen. I called him twice, but both times were the same. So I called him again the next day. This time, he was somewhat responsive, talking gibberish and making facial expressions. I called Kenji and my wife down, had them say hi to him and greet him for his birthday. Even on days when he didn't recognize me, he would often recognize Kenji or my wife. And maybe he did this time, but we wouldn't know. He continued to make facial expressions and talk gibberish.

Little did I know, that was the last time I would see him. He passed away two days later.

If you work in education, this complexity is the kind of thing we deal with on a daily basis when we work with families experiencing trauma. Thousands of complex situations like this exist in our classrooms and communities. And often, we want to simplify things. In our efforts to be helpful, we end up trying to give advice or help based on the lens of our own understanding. This is not helpful. Context matters, and often, a person's trauma is a tangled web of nuances.

Take my father's death. My wife consoled me because of the grief, but that's the extent of what she could do. For the rest of it, all she did was listen as I processed my feelings. There were no words, no advice, no comparison to her own experience with her father's death. Anything she could have said about the other aspects would simply have been hurtful. Why? Because the context of my father's death is very different.

One of the challenges we often face is the tendency to oversimplify and try to apply our own experiences and understanding to others' situations. But the reality is that trauma and its aftermath are complex and nuanced, and it's important to remember and consider the unique context of each person's experiences. When we understand and embrace this complexity, our compassion and efforts to support those who have experienced trauma can be more effective and have a lasting impact.

To my father, and complex relationship we will forever have.