Good Grief!
Laughing Through Grief
with: Tae Madden
November 2, 2022…
“Tae, your Daddy isn’t breathing, they had to rush him to the hospital.”
Says my mother over the phone.
When I arrived at the hospital, the first thing the nurse stated after confirming my identity, was “Your Dad did not make it. He was already gone before we were able to get him here to the hospital. I’m sorry.”
This was all very sudden and unexpected. Two days before, my dad had some tests with his doctor and everything appeared to be normal. I woke up that morning with nothing but ideas, bills, and clearance Halloween candy on my mind. I was not prepared to see my dad, dead on a hospital bed. I was not prepared to be in contact with a funeral home about the death of a parent. I was not prepared to be carrying the belongings that my dad arrived to the hospital with, back home in a bag.
I was not prepared to not have the chance to say goodbye or better yet, the chance to reconcile some things between us… It’s complicated.
I believe sometimes when one has a complicated relationship with their parents that it can seem as though it’s easier to cope. This is simply not true; My relationship with my dad was a complicated, yet loving one.
When I started junior high school, my Mother and Father separated. For some this may seem devastating, but for my family at the time this was actually something that brought me much relief. Although my parents separating brought relief, as a kid I did not realize that it would also leave room for distance to grow between me and my dad.
As a kid, I wanted nothing more than for my dad to be part of my life and proud of me. I wanted him to see the tough little boy I was becoming. I always say that I may be sweeter than Popeyes sweet tea, but I’m tougher than a Popeyes biscuit. This is because my dad was tough and ensured that I could not only take up for myself but I knew how to handle life’s tough moments.
So instead of following my dreams or doing activities I truly wanted to do as a kid, I became an athlete - In fact, I ended up being a star athlete. I ran track and field, solely because I knew my dad wanted me to play football and run track but the way my mannerisms are set up, football was a no-no, boo-boo. No ma’am.
Every track meet from freshman year of high school until my senior year of college, I would look up into the stands in hopes of seeing him cheering me on… That never happened.
In my adult life, my dad and I began to form a closer father/son relationship and I was happy with how much we had worked on and how far we had come. Until one day he said something unexpected, which I thought at the time was disrespectful - Not knowing he was going through some tough life changes and moments, which caused me to set boundaries; Boundaries that caused us to exchange our last words in June of 2022. So on top of Fathers Day being in June, his birthday being in June and that June was the last month during which we communicated with each other, all that makes this so hard to write and not be emotional.
Stages of Grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance
My grief showed up immediately. Even as I was standing over my Dad’s body at the hospital, my mind could not understand the fact that my dad was really no longer alive. Even as I looked at him breathless, my mind made me believe my eyes were seeing him breathe. This moment was probably the hardest, yet most confusing moment for me.
The first two weeks after his death I didn’t seem to cry much. All of a sudden one day, as I was in Target, an immediate and overwhelming feeling of sadness and confusion hit me. I began to cry my eyes out in the store and had to stop shopping and go to my car to let out the biggest cry and yell I had let out since the death. This random crying started happening more and more, sometimes during the most inconvenient moments of my days.
I begin to move from denial to anger and bargaining. I would find myself thinking of all the unresolved matters between us from the perspective of my childhood and adulthood. This would make me angry. I can’t pin point my anger as to if I was angry at him, myself or death. I just knew I had a surge of angry thoughts and moments. I was so angry that at times, if anyone gave their condolences or wished me well, instead of being grateful, I would secretly want to understand why they would want me to think of my dad or times we shared together.
At the beginning of grieving, this was hard.
I remember being at church and sitting in the parking lot for hours not being able to gather strength to drive or leave. I sat there for hours in silence and with my thoughts. I eventually realized there was no way to control my emotions the way I thought I would be able to.
Grief can overwhelm you and force you to make choices.
Although it comes with sadness, regret, anger and confusion - grief also allows one a choice. At one point I had to choose to be grateful for even having a Dad to grieve. I had to slowly learn to allow grief to be grief. I had to choose to go through it rather than avoid it because regardless, grief was going to grief!
This brought me to depression because I knew I was grieving and although making the choice to allow yourself to grieve and sit in it seems empowering, it is not easy at first. At first I found myself knowing I was grieving, but all while I was depressed. I found myself sometimes doing the same things I would do during my normal depression which includes isolation and anxiety.
It has been 7 months now and I can say that I am on the “Have accepted the fact that I have lost my Dad,” but acceptance can be tricky. Acceptance, at least for me, does not mean I no longer find myself angry or depressed because I most certainly do. Although there are stages of grief, I do not believe grief ever truly ends. I believe it becomes something one learns to allow to live with.
Although I accept it, I still have times I don’t understand it or I find myself crying uncontrollably. Writing this for example was hard because this month is not only Fathers Day, but also my Dad’s birthday and the last month in which we communicated. I had to read our final text messages before writing this as a way to face and accept that there is no more normal communication between us and it allowed me to sit in grief and go through it. Allowing myself moments to sit with my grief has been healing in some ways for me. I feel better after writing and facing my grief emotions head on. Sitting in grief allows me to reflect on the parts of our relationship I felt was broken and sometimes I find peace and understanding through grieving.
Standup Strength
I did my first mic 29 days after my Dad’s passing. I do not know what made me decide to do this. At first once I returned to standup, I was no where near funny. I had zero grief jokes. I thought I did but ultimately they were just memories in which I thought was funny internally, but didn’t know how to relay that externally.
My faith, family and friends truly helped me cope and helped me survive day to day during my early stages of grief and even to this day. Standup has been the fuel that has kept me going and searching until I finally found my funny again - which was about a month ago.
I am thankful for comedians and audiences who have had to sit through comics such as myself while we figure out the funny or work out talking about tough subjects such as the death of a parent on stage. I think a lot of times we take the audience for granted and forget that they help push us through our hard times by being willing to sit and listen as we make the entire room cringe and uncomfortable.
Talking about my grief on stage even when there was no true punchline, gave me strength. It gave me strength to keep going and strength to have conversations with myself after my sets in order for me to find the funny over time. Part of this was realizing that my dad himself was funny which allowed me to slowly tap into and begin to tell stories about the fun times versus just the fact I was grieving.
The Portland comedy scene to me is community
Whether comedians know it or not, the simple fact that we have multiple shows and open mics to look forward to on a DAILY basis is something I’m forever grateful for because this pushed me to get out some days and be around others as well as kept me in my craft more consistently. This helped me learn how to allow grief to live with me and not let it take away my goals and dreams. Yes, it slowed me down and I had to work through it and it took months to find my funny but I’m glad I did that, rather than not work through it, do nothing and ignore my grief. Not only the amount of shows and mics but the variety of show and mic types. We may not tell each other our deepest feelings off the stage but I think it’s safe to say that we are a community for each other in so many more ways than laughs.
Grief is a rollercoaster of emotions and feelings. For me they range from sadness to love. Grief for every person will be different. The grief stages and timeline will be different for every person. There is no set formula on how to grieve.
The coping of grief will be different for every person.
I want others to know that it’s okay to not be okay and recognition of that in itself is wonderful.
Find your cope and grieve on.
by: Tae Madden
