Skip to main content
first person
Open this photo in gallery:

Chelsea O'Byrne/The Globe and Mail

First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.

Today’s First Person is part of a week-long tribute to fatherhood.

You don’t have to look too far to see our similarities – brown eyes, thick golden-brown hair, freckles, the way we stare at the TV with our heads turned sideways, eyebrows arched, mouths open – one of our many Chiovitti trademarks.

But one thing I desperately wish I didn’t have in common with my 8-year-old niece and my 10-year-old nephew is that we’ve lost our dads – suddenly, and within 16 months of each other. Last year was our first Father’s Day without my 63-year-old father who died of a heart attack. This year will be their first without their (much younger) dad.

My brother-in-law, who had been a lean and healthy 40 year old, fell suddenly, seriously ill last summer with autoimmune liver disease and complications from septic infection. He was admitted to the hospital on Father’s Day, went into emergency surgery and essentially clung to life, on and off life support, all summer before passing away on Labour Day weekend.

We used to wonder how families who have been through so much loss managed to carry on. Then we became that family. We are still figuring it out. It’s a lengthy process without a concrete timeline. You push on and you push through. You try to find moments of joy in every day. You answer difficult questions from the kids. And despite all the loss, you remember there is still so much to be grateful for.

When we go out for a family dinner, there are no dads at our table. But we do our best to fill the void by remembering funny things about our dads or special memories of places we’ve been on family outings and trips. It warms our hearts when the kids talk about their dad with so much pride, recalling fun memories.

The night before their dad died, my niece and nephew slept over at my place so we could be together, near the downtown hospital. We went to bed after taking a bunch of silly selfies on my phone. We needed to release some of our nervous energy, I’m sure. We fell asleep all cuddled up together, me in the middle, feeling safe and comforted in each other’s arms while we waited for my sister to arrive. If there’s a word in the English language for how I felt at that moment, that night, I haven’t found it yet.

The next morning, Frank died. What do you do to keep the kids busy on the day their dad passes away? What would be the right thing to do? What’s acceptable? None of that mattered – we did what we felt was right for us. While my sister immediately shifted into survival mode and planning for her late husband’s services, I took the kids out to get some sunshine and fresh air. It was all very surreal and I kept having to remind myself that he had died that morning.

The kids and I went out to do a couple of our favourite things in the city and tried our best to stay focused on the moment, despite our shock and numbness. At our first stop, the kids’ favourite toy store, reality hit when a young employee pointed to a new, outdoor action toy and suggested it would be a good one for my nephew to play with his dad. Sigh.

Next we went to Riverdale Farm – a small urban farm in the middle of Toronto – for what is a typically peaceful and sunny walk with lots of animals to see, smell and pet. That day, however, there weren’t enough animals out and the kids expressed their anger and grief in a variety of ways, including excessive bickering, stomping their feet and walking across the top of the picnic tables. I remember them trying to see who could be yell the loudest. The people staring us down at the picnic table nearby didn’t faze me. I wished we’d had T-shirts that said a family member had just died – leave us alone, thank you very much. In fact, I still wish we had these T-shirts. It feels like something to declare, not for pity or sympathy, but compassion and space. Permission to be who we are now, forever changed.

I have little patience for people who don’t appreciate that my life is different now. Grief makes you more selective in how you spend your energy and with whom. Added to this is the experience I’ve had interacting with families in my work who have lost children to illness. Just like there are things you can’t “unsee,” I have perspective I can’t undo.

And please spare me all the platitudes that are supposed to make us feel better – that it gets easier with time, they’re in a better place now, they’re no longer suffering. For me, the grief only becomes less raw, not as fresh. The numbness and shock wear off but the absences are still so present and weigh on our family every day. But kids are resilient, that one is true.

Grief is not a linear process. There are days when the loss fuels you and drives you to be the best you can be because life is meant for living, life is short, you only live once and all that. There are other days when it is all you can do to get out of bed, push through and face the happy, fast-moving world around you.

The picture frame on my bedside table stands vertically but the photo inside it is horizontal. It’s an image of me and my sister at her wedding rehearsal dinner in 2005. Maybe it was foreshadowing the future would go rather sideways and not as planned, hoped or dreamed. I have kept it there all these years. Just like that. We look good in it. And we are smiling.

Sandra Chiovitti lives in Toronto.

Interact with The Globe