Today is my first Father's Day without a father, but then again, it isn't. On May 27, his body stopped breathing, but I don't know if that's when he died. May 24th, life support was unplugged. May 22, he was found after having a stroke days before. But when did he "leave"?

When did he leave my life? Fifteen years ago. In a heated phone call, he disowned me, and we hadn't talked since, other than...

In the last year, he called, and we met up, had light conversation with my brother for less than an hour; we did that twice. And he called on my birthday, and we talked briefly about nothing. We didn't try to fix what happened, but that didn't bother me. We didn't plan on getting together more, and that didn't bother me either. No expectations or plans. No regrets either. Enough contact recently to confirm that he didn't have the capacity to be the bare minimum I needed to move my boundary line. He was too old to represent a threat, and mentally too gone to have the capacity to change.

And none of that bothered me.

It hurt me to see my brother have to deal with the mess of his life, poor planning, or even an acceptance that Dad never considered that he would ever die. Or any consideration for what a mess he would leave behind, or the benefit he could have been to his only two children. What a waste.

As I sit with this, I realize I am a grief expert. I focused on grief in my 28-year career as a counselor. Denial is not acceptable to me in others ...or myself. Ironically, I completed the final tests on Griffin, a grief/loss support bot I created, a week before Dad died. So I spent hours interacting with Griffin, pondering, soul-searching, and meditatively allowing any and all feelings to surface. Still not bothered.

Griffin said I had already said my goodbyes, and the fuzzy date of his death did little to change that. However, I should be prepared to continue the internal work, as it could surface months later. I am willing, and even writing this is a part of that process I am allowing.

The other part is that if you had told me something similar to this early in my career, I would not have believed that your dad dying didn't bother you. But now I would. Like Griffin, I would advise you to stay open. Flow in forgiveness, understanding, love, and acceptance.

-Casey