The Dirty Little Secret About Grief

is that it makes you want to die too.

I’m sitting in Penn Station, waiting for the train to Ronkonkoma to bring me back to my best friend’s house. It’s her birthday. She’s having dinner with her family and I’m invited, but I don’t know if I have it in me to go. It feels off.

We went shopping in SoHo and Chelsea, took photos, and got piercings together. We had good coffee, I got good books, and my little quirky heart should be content with a day like this, but I’m not. I walked around like a little Carrie Bradshaw in a graphic tank, flats with bows, and Prada sunglasses with a 2005 re-edition.

What awaits for her is a family dinner. I’m invited. Her dad will sit on the couch, crack jokes, and talk about his oldest daughter being nineteen today. I’m nauseous at the thought.

On my nineteenth birthday, my dad sat on a recliner and forgot what day it was. He murmured my name and didn’t quite say “Sam” right.

Birthdays have always been special to me. I covered my best friend’s breakfast and whatever little special things she wanted along the way. I like doing little things to make people’s birthdays better because that’s what my dad always did. He made every birthday special, until he wasn’t quite here to do that anymore. Of course, he’s still here, just with a neurodegenerative disease that stole the sweetest bits and pieces of him from me.

It’s suffocating and overwhelming. A huge part of me wants to go with him, which is the dirtiest part. It’s my biggest secret, but obviously I’m not good at keeping those. I’ve spilled every secret I’ve ever had in the pages of this blog, it’s like a little reward to those who actually read it.

I think about the big thing daily. Every time I’m reminded that he’s dying, I think about it. I don’t know if I’d be able to, but I just think about the possibility.

Two things flash in my mind, my past and my future.

The things only he knows. The secrets I don’t think I could ever say out loud. Being sexually abused in elementary school and crying to him about it. My best friend trying to rape me, down to every detail. Why I can’t let people in. Why I hate to let them go. He watched what my mom did to me, as he had it done to him.

The walk alone down the aisle because no one could replace him. Teaching my children who their grandpa was, not is. Every mundane day where I can’t call him and ask how he is, how he feels. The advice I’ll always need and never get. The questions I didn’t ask.

I’m going to dinner. I’m broke and I want free food, and of course I love my best friend. I’m not quite hungry, I’m nauseous thinking about everything. I’m happy for her, that she has the life I’d always wanted. And I’ll remind her, as I wish someone had reminded me, how much of a gift her active father is.