Grief is such a strong emotion that most people don’t exit this earth having skipped the experience. When grieving the loss of a loved one in the early days, the grief can be so strong that it feels like physical pain. You may start to believe that you’ve cried so much that there must be something medically wrong with you for your body to still be producing tears. There’s no placating cliché about grief that can make the early moments of it more tolerable.
But as people move past the active grieving stage, it contorts itself into something more tolerable that allows you to continue daily obligations before it changes again. Once years pass, grief becomes sort of like a silent passenger holding a jack-in-the-box. You find yourself having full on belly laughs again, feeling quite normal when suddenly out pops that dang clown from the depths of the box.
One man took to his TikTok account, dadchats, to share his experience with a surprise moment of grief for his father that passed away three years prior. It’s the perfect depiction of the realities of grieving a profound loss.
“Last night my dead father called me on his cellphone,” he starts the video. “It’s 9:30 p.m. and I’m watching the Packers vs Taylor Swift game when all of a sudden my phone goes off and for the past five months if I get a call that late at night it’s either about a vehicle warranty or it’s about getting more printer ink.”
The grieving son jokes about not having a printer before explaining how his deceased father called him. Turns out, it wasn’t his father, likely much to is relief and simultaneous disappointment. The call was from his mother who never stopped paying for his father’s phone unbeknownst to the man picking his heart up off of the floor after seeing “dad” pop up on his phone screen. He explains that his mother only ever calls him from her home phone so this call was sort of a jump scare of the worst kind.
@dadchats Grief still knows my number
The man got emotional talking about the deep yearning you feel when missing a parent who has passed away. He revealed that his dad dying was a fear he had since childhood due to how old his father was when he was born so he stocked up on voicemails to avoid forgetting his dad’s voice. After a few more tear filled moments, the grieving son gives a bit of advice.
“If you’re struggling, especially just out of the blue, that’s ok, that happens. That’s normal, just sit in it. Grieve with it, feel it. It doesn’t go away I don’t think, it certainly hasn’t for me, it still feels as fresh today as it did three years ago.”
Viewers of his heartfelt video flocked to the comments to leave words of encouragement and to detail their own experiences with grief. It was truly a moment of what community can look like online.
“Your[sic] absolutely right that the first thing you forget is the sound of their voice! I so badly wish I could still hear the sound of my mom’s voice,” one person writes.
“Hits home! I called my dad every night for years and kept picking up the phone for months only to remember he won’t answer,” another admits.
“Grief is like glitter. You never know when it’s going to show up, sometimes,” someone relates.
That commenter is right, grief is like glitter. No matter how long ago you handled glitter you’ll still find little sparkly flecks of it every where you go.
Source: https://www.upworthy.com/call-from-dead-dad