My dad passed away back in 2008. I put off the grief and tried to tough it out for 16 years by keeping it to myself. Recently, my emotions have gotten the best of me and I broke down in tears when I was going through my family album and saw a picture of him holding me as a baby. People tell me that it's been 16 years and that I need to get over it. Those that told me to get over it, their parents are still alive. I snapped at them and said, "Your parents are still alive so you don't know how it feels to lose a parent so stfu!" I know I shouldn't have snapped like I did. I guess I just bottled everything up until I couldn't bottle it up anymore which is why i everything is coming out now.

What hurt me the most is my dad passed away on my mom's birthday and birthdays are a huge occasion in our family so seeing my mom cry on her birthday really affected me. Ever since then, my mom didn't care about celebrating her birthday anymore. I still take my mom out to the casino and give her money to gamble for her birthday and I told my mom that dad would still want her to enjoy her birthday. She seemed to appreciate that even though I could see that she still didn't care about her birthday anymore.

I drank for quite awhile to numb the pain and attempt to block out the grieving process. And it got to the point that my health crashed to rock bottom. Eventually, I realized that alcohol wasn't helping and that I needed to find a more appropriate way to cope and face my grief head on instead of running away from it. I eventually put the bottle down for good after realizing that alcohol wasn't a solution.

I recently started grief therapy and attended a grief support group because I know I couldn't delay my grief any further and admitted that I do need help to process through my grieving process. The grief support group has been very helpful so far because I'm with others who are grieving the loss of a loved one and we all offer to support each other.

I'm still in the beginning of the process but I'm getting through it slowly but surely. I gave up fishing for quite awhile because fishing was something my dad and I did and it wasn't the same. I'm about to get back into fishing again because I really miss enjoying the scenery.