Julie Jay: Having kids doesn’t make grief easier, but it helps keep you grounded

It is nearly impossible to believe my dad has been gone a year, but as much as the kids have kept me moving forward, they've kept me grounded in the present, too

Anytime I have a wobble and think I want to take to the bed for the afternoon, I remember that I have two tiny people who love nothing more than boiling kettles or reaching for carving knives, and so the option of disappearing for a day is off the table. Picture: iStock 

It has been a year since my dad passed away, and I can tell you that it has taken a year for the penny to fully drop that he’s gone.

Grieving is simultaneously made a million times harder by having kids, but also a million times easier.

Anytime I have a wobble and think I want to take to the bed for the afternoon, I remember that I have two tiny people who love nothing more than boiling kettles or reaching for carving knives, and so the option of disappearing for a day is off the table.

There have been so many moments with the kids where a passing comment about my dad has me momentarily overcome with emotion. The very mention of his name stops my heart, but I also try to smile through the tears and encourage them to speak of him because the only harder thing than losing someone is forgetting someone.

It is still too soon for me to talk about my dad with a lightness appropriate for most of the stories that involve him. When family members mention his name, I want to tell them to stop, that it is too much to bear, but with my kids, I know that option simply isn’t on the table.

Keeping my dad’s memory alive is partly fuelled by wanting to be as open and transparent with the kids as possible. For my generation, there were a lot of cloaks and daggers when it came to explaining away somebody suddenly disappearing from our lives.

In the ’80s, it was common practice for a neighbour or a distant family member to simply disappear from family or neighbourhood lore overnight due to getting themselves into some bit of bother. 

“Whatever happened to James from down the road?” a well-meaning 1980s child might enquire, to which an Irish parent would invariably respond, “Who’s James?”

This denial would be made only more confusing by the fact that it would later turn out this same neighbour was, in fact, your uncle, twice removed.

As much as I have tried and been mostly successful in trying to forget, over the course of the last year, that my dad is dead, the reminders from the universe always come when I least expect them.

On more than one occasion, I have opened a book at storytime only to find an inscription from my dad and feel bamboozled. It defies all reason: how can this written message from him be here, when he is not? 

The cruelty of it can sometimes stop me from opening these books at all, not quite ready for my breath to be taken from me, like an elbow to the gut. Were it not for the seductive rhymes of the original gangster rapper, Dr Seuss, we might have given up on literacy completely.

Of course, there have been funny moments too. When my five-year-old found me crying about my dad as I folded laundry two weeks after his death, he gently asked me why I was upset. When I told him, his reply was blunt but fair:

"OK, I get why you’re sad, but we’re still going swimming."

Children are brutal, of that there is no doubt, but they also keep us firmly grounded in the here and now.

As I sniffled through my tears, here was my five-year-old bringing me straight back to the present, reminding me I needed to get his bag ready and to “not forget my goggles this time”.

There have been many days when I have wanted to hit either the chocolate or the wine when the realisation that Dad is physically gone hits me. However, having the kids has forced me to keep going, keep ploughing on, which isn’t a bad thing, especially given my default personality type is a Class A Wallower.

Of course, every big moment since he has been gone has been tinged with sadness. Number One’s first day of school was particularly tricky for me. If you passed an Avensis pulled over late last August and spotted a driver with a mascara-stained face and puffy eyes, please know I wasn’t listening to Adele on repeat — I was mourning the fact that my dad hadn’t made it to see his first grandson’s first day at school.

I was heartbroken because I know how much he would have loved it, how proud he would have been of him. But I also know he would have killed me for pulling over on a double yellow.

The beauty in the world is a reminder that he is still with us, in ways, but also a stab to the heart that I will never hug him again. Every rainbow spotted has me thinking of him, every robin. 

When I am out walking with the kids and either of these symbols is spotted, it is at once the best and hardest part of the outing for me. The kids revel in these little sightings, and sometimes it prompts Number One to mention my dad. (He made the association early on that rainbows and robins are signs that their grandfather is still near them in spirit).

Needless to say, the sentiment is lovely, but also can be a lot for a person predisposed to melancholy to bear. As somebody who was never particularly good at regulating my emotions, this one will take me a while to master.

I suppose the thing with grief is that it lives beside love, and joy, and all the good stuff.

It can be so hard to find the happiness amid the sadness left behind by the person’s passing, but find it you must, which, like your child’s goggles, will usually appear in the most unlikely of places — in the latter’s case, my knicker drawer.