Clean Grief

Good morning to all. This evening I will begin a 6 week bereavement course that is run by the church where my dad is buried. I do not attend the church but they have been really good to me and seem to be truly invested in helping people who are grieving. They are actually really great. They held a service for those who had experienced loss, back in December, a little while before Christmas. It was really beautiful and intense. It was the first time I'd been in a group of grievers and it was honestly really hard and really amazing. Tonight will probably be similar. I want to grieve my dad's death but I also really want to get to the place where my default memories are of him before the end. Even if they are when he was sick, I would be okay with that. We really connected and established a new bond during that time, so I am grateful for it and don't fear remembering it, although of course it's difficult. It's the end that fucking destroys me. The last month and a half. It was just hell. And I have found that it is so burned into my soul that it's often all I can remember, which is so sad because there was so much more to my dad and his relationship with me than the end. When he died I was about 7 months pregnant, had endless issues to deal with alone in relation to his death, then had my baby soon after, and was immersed in being a new mom. After the initial weeks of newness with our tiny man, maybe a month and a half after, I started drinking here and there. It escalated back to close to what it was before I was pregnant, which was almost daily, about 2 drinks each evening, sometimes more. Also on the weekends it was more like an average of 3 drinks a night. I have coped with the grief by drinking and since I haven't been drinking I feel like I want to confront the grief in a new and clean way. No desire to drink by the way. It's weird. Last night I finished Jason Vale and I had a few rumblings about "forever"... They passed pretty quickly. I must remember that it is never just the one. Mrs D talked about the daily "treadmill" of drinking she was on. I relate to that description a lot. I really think I just need to stop drinking. I don't need it and mostly just don't even want it now. It need not have control over me. It doesn't need to be my crutch or my celebration buddy. I don't have to do it at all. Jason Vale talked about how odd/sad it is that drinking is the norm and not drinking is not the norm. I completely agree. Feeling melancholy but good. Bright sunny day.