father(less) day.
I hate them. All of those commercials on TV for Father's Day urging people to "show Dad just how much he means to you." I wish there was a button to filter out those commercials, because not only do they remind me that I don't have a father anymore and also it makes me feel like I never had a chance to really show or express to my Dad how much he meant to me when he was here. I know that's just the grief talking, but if I hadn't spent the year he was dying in complete denial, there's so much I would have done, so much I would have said, and although I'm sure he never imagined I'd fall so far after he died (anyone who wants to claim that "complicated grief"/"prolonged grief disorder" is a myth really just needs to take a look at my life), I know it was my own fault, too, for spending the first two years in complete denial, in and out of hospitals and surviving some extremely lethal suicide attempts. So in a way, now that I'm not AS much of a complicated grief sufferer (or at least not as much as I was), this feels like the first Father's Day without him - even though he died in August 2010. I know that's going to feel like the first anniversary without him, too. Any tips on emotional preparation? I was thinking that if things get really bad in the week preceding it (e.g., I again begin wishing I could join him in death), I'd go to a hospital - but other than that, what can I do on both Father's Day and the anniversary? If you never had complicated grief, how did you deal with those first anniversaries without your dad?