“Allow Happiness” – Just for Today

“Just for Today” for Bereaved Parents – (Section Nine)

Just for today I will allow myself to be happy, for I know that I am not deserting my child by living on.

This is a tough one.  I know many of you that will read this believe that you will never feel happiness again.  I know this, because I felt the same way for a long time.  I am not sure what I wanted more, to feel some sense of happiness again or for the despair to end.  I think it was the fact that I wanted the despair and pain to subside, which in time it did, but only a little at a time.  It was like one step forward and two steps back.  When I did have a good day (relatively speaking) I would feel guilty for feeling happiness.  The guilt would throw me back into the depths of despair.  It’s a vicious cycle that is very hard to break.

I developed an escape plan to get myself out of the despair and into happiness.  I knew I couldn’t continue to live the same life as before, the long hours at a corporate job I hated and chasing the elusive dollar.  I came to realize that way of life is an empty.  So I developed a plan.  Although the plan has changed over the last couple of years and I suspect it will continue to develop over time, just creating the plan helped me feel some sort of hope, like there was a way out.

I have made it my life mission to help others on this difficult journey.  I will accomplish this by continuing with this Grieving Dads project, counseling, coaching and training others on how to better “handle” grieving dads.  It’s a mission that will offer help and create awareness to what dads experience after the death of a child. 

Some form of happiness will return to you some day, not as quickly as you would like, but it will and when it does, allow yourself to enjoy the moment.