Grief – The death of my father

My father sadly passed away on the 6th of June and I was stuck in the UK unable to attend his funeral. From all the health problems he had in the last 5 years, including severe depression, 2 suicide attempts, heart failure and triple bypass surgery his cause of death was actually choking. He chocked on a small piece of meat when he was having his dinner and the more he coughed, the more lodged this little piece of meat got. Eventually his heart gave up and they couldn’t revive him.

I hate the fact that it was my father’s gold-digging wife that called me and told me on that Saturday evening. What upset me even more was that I spoke to my father for a mere 2 minutes the day before he died and all he spoke about on the phone was how stressed he felt about building a house for his wife.  His constant stress in that marriage was having enough money to meet the demands of his megalomaniac wife.

Sadly, my half-brother (14 years old) was with my father when he chocked and devastatingly watched him die. The trauma this poor kid has been through has been far worse than what I experienced growing up and it makes me so angry at the injustice of what he has been through. I have always wanted to reach out and be there for him since he was born but his mother made it nearly impossible because of her controlling and isolating tactics.

My father’s funeral was on the 10th of June, 4 days after his death. I only managed to watch a few little videos of his service and the burial and the whole thing felt incredibly surreal. I never imagined that the reason I wouldn’t be able to attend his funeral would be a global pandemic!

Although I wasn’t able to make any decisions in regards to where the funeral was held and what to dress him in, the actual location was exactly what my father would have wanted. The church was brand new and the graveyard was right next to it, on the top of a hill overlooking Glyfada (my home in Greece) and the sea. The church was modern and the location serene.

I hope to eventually visit my Dad’s grave in September to say goodbye properly with family and friends, with a memorial service that his wife isn’t welcome to join.

Currently, I am in the middle of what could be a very unpleasant inheritance battle with his wife who predictably decided to empty my Dad’s bank account 9 days after his death. Negotiating with lawyers has been stressful at such distance and I have hated feeling so out of control..

My grief is currently present mostly in the form of stress, worry, feeling spaced out and angry at the unfairness of my dad’s life choices. He made one bad decision marrying his wife followed by many subsequent bad decisions until his death. I lost my Dad a very long time ago and I felt this the very first time I met this woman and saw how strong a hold she had on him. She controlled him in every way and he always put her first.

Now that Dad has passed, I can only hope that he is at peace..His suffering was self-created sadly..He was given many opportunities by family and friends to leave this woman but he was never strong enough to do so properly.. Luckily we were on speaking terms but our relationship had been very strained over the last 5 years..

I can only hope now that the courts will decide on a fair outcome in regards to the inheritance and that his gold digging wife won’t get to keep all the money he fought so hard to distribute fairly.

Thanks for reading

Love Athina ♥