The Anger I Couldn't Admit

I rushed out the door ignoring the needs of my kids.

I had to take my daughter to her cheer competition. I would be there all day, as those things go. My one boy was asking me to take him to a friend’s house and my youngest needed help with his homework.

I knew I wouldn’t be around, stuck at the competition, so I tried to make food available for lunch.

“Sorry, I can’t bring you to your friend’s, I gotta take Grace. And buddy, we can do your homework when I get back, or ask your brother to help you.”

And then I was out the door.

At the competition, I sat all day, stuffed between bodies in a gym that was well over the safe decibel limit. Louder than a concert. I popped in my ear plugs and waited for the two minutes out of the whole day that I got to watch my daughter perform.

In the bleachers, I was surrounded by parents who were paired up for each athlete. I listened to them making plans for after the day was over. Who was going to cook dinner, what weekend plans they had and how they would split them up.

My stomach hardened and my throat closed. Inside, I was screaming, “f*ck you and your ability to share the burden.”

The anger never subsided. It only grew. Except for the two minutes when I watched my daughter perform. Those moments, filled with pride and sadness.

“Ariana, look at how amazing our daughter is.” I whispered to myself. Tears staggered down my face.

Back home, exhausted, I walked into the kitchen. The sink had a mountain of plates. Every cabinet left open. Wrappers littered the counter and table like an art project. Laundry needed to be dried and folded. Dinner had to be cooked and my son’s homework was still lingering.

I looked at everything, walked to the couch, and collapsed.

For the next two hours I laid there, house a mess, drifting from consciousness to unconsciousness. Fueled by an anger that my kids no longer had two parents to care for them.

They were stuck with me. Disadvantaged. Unable to meet all their needs.

It wasn’t bad enough they had to watch their mom die. Now they had to struggle twice as hard for their basic needs.

I was not a single parent. I was a solo-parent.

Father Death

I held onto anger. Over time I obscured my anger with sadness.

“I wasn’t angry, I was just sad.”

And so the justifications went on and on.

In the denial of my anger I began to pull away from my body, my children, and my life.

I retreated deep into my mind. Isolation on a level I had never felt before.

I couldn’t feel the edges of my own body. I only saw images that tortured my mind.

The kids had lost me. I was a flattened, deflated shell. At night, I would drape myself across the bed for a few hours of sleep and wake in the middle of the night to begin inflating my shell just enough to survive one more day.

I lived every day knowing I was failing at least one child.

They needed a ride to their friends.

They needed help with their homework.

They needed love, attention, and reassurance I would not abandon them like their mom.

And every time they asked, they were met with a grunt at best or silence at worst.

I grew resentful of children with both parents intact.

I grew to despise the complaints I heard from other dads on the sidelines at my children’s games.

I was sure I was angry for the kids, but the truth was, I was angry at Ariana.

It was her fault I was in this position.

It was her fault for leaving us.

It was her memory I cursed and screamed at while alone in the house.

It was the anger I refused to admit to myself. And the refusal kept me from growing.

The Admission

When I finally admitted it, out loud, something cracked open.

Saying the words gave my body permission to experience the pain and the anger. It let my mind rip open with everything I was feeling but could never admit.

When I spoke it out loud, that I was angry with her, it finally fixed the dissonance in my body and mind.

The secret was never the anger itself. It was the hiding.

If you’ve cursed your dead spouse and told no one, you’re not broken. You’re human.

Your anger does not define the relationship or love you shared with your person. It is a natural response from your nervous system that one day they were here, the next they were gone.

The grief I could carry. It was the anger I couldn’t admit.

- CJ

P.S. If you’re carrying the weight of denied anger, I wrote Torn Pages From A Broken Heart so you can know you are not alone.

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What ways have you denied your anger?

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