Listen: Good Grief. Podcast, Episode 8

In the eighth episode of the Good Grief. Podcast, Aundrea Sayrie reflects on her late father who passed away just over a year ago and how she has been dealing with the grief since. Aundrea writes about memories, trials, and tribulations related to her father, and celebrates their time together.

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A Tribute to My Father

I had planned for this episode to be a tribute.

Getting it completed has proven to be incredibly difficult.

This last week has been slower.

Heavier.

Filled with tears.

Headaches.

Congestion.

It’s almost as if my body broke down under the weight of knowing this day was approaching.

And that’s something I continue to learn about grief.

Even as a grief companion.

Even as an educator.

I am also very much a student.

Because today marks one year since my father left this earth.

And somehow…

It still feels surreal.

I wasn’t always sure I would have feelings about my father’s passing.

That may sound callous but it was something I had thought about once or twice while he was still living.

My father was sixteen when I was born and he didn’t stay around long after.

I was sixteen when we connected again.

But before that…

I knew what it was like to grow up without a father.

And an absent father can create its own kind of grief.

A hole in your identity.

Questions you don’t know how to ask.

And sometimes…

a fantasy.

You begin to imagine that if you had a father there to protect you, perhaps you would never experience anything bad.

Perhaps things would have been different.

I didn’t have that.

My reunion with my father was unconventional.

My uncle called my adoptive mother from prison one random day.

He said he’d found my dad.

They had been playing basketball in the yard.

And apparently my father threw his head back laughing.

Just so.

And in that moment, my uncle saw…me.

Clear as day.

He said to my father:

“You look just like my niece, Aundrea.”

And my father said:

“I have a daughter named Aundrea.”

A quick comparison of notes.

And suddenly…

we were pen pals.

I couldn’t stop staring at the four pictures he sent me.

I had a dad.

I have his face.

His complete face.

His mannerisms.

His hands.

We both liked rain.

We both liked jazz.

I couldn’t stop looking at him.

It was eerie in a way, looking at someone who looked like me.

I fit visually in a way I never had before…

I met my father while he was still shackled hand and foot.

In an orange jumpsuit.

Standing next to a bailiff against a wall in front right of the church at my great grandmother’s funeral.

I was eighteen.

As I made my way past the casket,

I looked pleadingly at the bailiff.

He nodded.

A small yes.

And with tears streaming down my face…

I ran into my father’s arms.

For the first time.

And before I could even release him…

the arms of my five siblings were wrapped around us.

All of us.

In one amazing, beautiful group hug.

A moment I will never forget.

Priceless.

And in that moment…

a piece of me began to heal.

My father was a good-hearted man.

He was an addict.

An alcoholic.

He lived for fun and the moment at hand.

Rarely considering the consequences.

And yet, the kind of person who empathetically carried the world on his shoulders.

And truthfully…

the world had not always been kind to him.

He spent much of his life trying to figure out how to cope with what life had given him.

He was funny.

He was a complete extrovert.

I admired him from the corner.

I loved him.

I love him.

And I miss him.

This first year…

I’ve been grieving him.

Of course.

But I’ve also been grieving something else.

Time. He was still so young.

I thought we had more of it.

And that brings me to something we don’t talk about enough when we talk about grief.

When someone dies…

we don’t only lose the person.

We lose a lot of what was still possible.

Grief professionals call these secondary losses.

The primary loss is obvious.

My father died.

But underneath that loss…

were other losses.

I ran out of time to unpack things with him.

I ran out of time to learn his story deeply.

I ran out of time to make more memories.

To laugh.

And my dad was extremely funny.

I ran out of time.

And there is something about that realization that has been especially difficult.

That grievers aren’t only grieving the past, but also the future.

The conversations that will never happen.

The places we will never go.

The versions of ourselves we might have become beside them.

A year.

A whole year.

Since I lost my father.

I’ve been grieving all the versions of him I knew.

The father I didn’t have.

The father I found.

And now…

the father I miss.

Good Grief.

It’s complicated like that.

We can love someone and have complicated feelings about them.

We can miss someone and still have unanswered questions.

We can grieve what happened.

And grieve what never happened.

We can mourn a person.

And mourn the time.

And if you’re listening to this because you’ve lost someone and you, too, feel like you ran out of time…

There is no amount of preparation that prepares us for all the things we will wish we had said.

No amount of love guarantees that we will feel finished with someone before they die.

Sometimes we are still getting to know people when we lose them.

Sometimes we are still figuring out how to be their child.

Their parent.

Their partner.

Their friend.

Sometimes the relationship is still unfolding.

And loss closes the door before we were ready.

Running out of time doesn’t mean we wasted the time we had.

We wish for more.

But cannot go back.

We can only honor what was.

We can remember.

We can tell stories.

We can laugh when we remember something funny.

I can look in the mirror.

And see his face.

I can listen to jazz.

I can sit in the rain.

And remember that somewhere in this enormous, complicated world…

there was a man who liked those things too.

My father.

Lee Arthur Culver Jr.

Love leaves us, not just pain.

Evidence.

Evidence that they were here.

Evidence that they mattered.

That they became part of us.

I am still his daughter.

Still a student.

Although I thought we had more time,

I am grateful for the time we had.

Good Grief.

Aundrea Sayrie is a writer, narrator, advocate, and the creator of Good Grief., a reflective platform exploring grief, belonging, identity, healing, and intentional living through storytelling and spoken reflection. Drawing from lived experience, community advocacy, and creative expression, her work centers emotional honesty, connection, and giving language to the experiences many people struggle to name. She truly believes the only thing worse than hurting is hurting alone and hopes to be a companion to others through their healing journey. 

If you would like to support her work as an independent writer and creative, donations can be sent via Cash App: $Asayrie

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Any views or opinions expressed in Good Grief. do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Watershed Voice staff or its board of directors.