The Scream

Grief Comes in Waves

The night I lost my father, the years I spent hiding it, and the slow, holy work of beginning to heal.

A friend once asked me, gently, “What did you do when your father died?”

I told her the truth. “I screamed until I lost my voice.”

Even now, the tears come at the memory of that black, terrible night.

It was late in the evening when my grandfather called. “Steffi?” he said, hesitating, his voice breaking. And then he told me my father was gone. There was more, he said — more than my mind could hold. My father had not died alone. Others had died too. In the depths of his illness, he had taken lives, and then his own.

I don’t remember how the call ended. I dropped the phone. I sank to my knees. And I screamed — louder and longer and harder than I ever had in my life. I screamed and screamed and screamed.

My Grandma Jean tried to hold me, but there was no consoling me. I folded in half on the floor. My husband stood nearby in tears, helpless, watching me come apart. They simply let me scream — until I ran out of air, and gasped, and screamed again. At some point Grandma slipped away to call our bishop.

A little while later, the men of our ward’s bishopric knocked at the door and were brought downstairs to where I lay curled on the floor, arms wrapped around my middle, my head pounding, sick to my stomach. My sisters — where had they been taken? I was the oldest. My mind spun with impossible questions. What. Why. How. Is this real. Oh, dear God.

Somehow I leaned back against the wall, tried to look like I was holding together, and told those gentle, crouching men what my grandfather had told me — recounting it flatly, third-hand, like a reporter reading a story she couldn’t believe. They laid their hands on my head and gave me a priesthood blessing.

And then I begged them: please, tell no one. Not a soul in the church, not even my visiting teachers. So for months afterward I moved through my days pretending nothing had happened at all.

A shadow had fallen across my family name — a name once carried by generals and colonels, by a great-great-grandmother listed in Who’s Who Among American Women. Now I could hardly say my maiden name aloud, terrified someone would make the connection. To this day I quietly avoid people from that town, just in case.

The pain has never fully left me. Sometimes it still rises up in the middle of church, and the tears come without warning. One Sunday an older man — the father of a friend — sat in the pew just in front of me: white-haired, balding, with a tan head, so like my dad. I cried silently the entire hour.

I miss my father. That funny, funny, wonderfully goofy man — so generous, so tender, so kind. I miss him more than I know how to say.

Grief comes in waves for me. I stuff it down for years, and then let a little of it out at a time.

Some days the sorrow is so heavy I feel like I could be sick from it. I’ve noticed, too, that when I eat gluten or heavily processed food, a low, gray heaviness can settle over me — a real reaction in my body, and part of why I’ve learned to eat clean and close to the earth. It helps me feel steadier. But I’ve learned something the hard way, and I’ll say it plainly, because it matters: for grief and depression that run this deep, food is a help, never a whole answer, and never a shield. I’m reaching for every source of healing I can find — good food and water and sunlight, yes, but far more than that: the people who love me, real help when I need it, and the Savior, whose healing I am only just beginning to let in.

Today I went to church without a spark of excitement. I went through the motions. But as I sat and listened to testimonies of the Savior, and was met by kind people whose love I could actually feel, my cold, hard heart softened just a little. Someday, I believe, it will be soft again.

To keep going, I’ll have to forgive the ones who might judge my lack of joy right now. So — forgive me. I’m still grieving. It comes in waves.

Maybe the fact that I can write this down at all is a sign that I’m beginning to heal. Maybe I’m finally becoming ready to tell his story. It was tragic — so very tragic. And still, I need you to know: my father was so much more than the worst thing that ever happened. He was mine, and I loved him, and I always will.

“The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” - Psalm 34:18

If you’re carrying something heavy of your own, please don’t carry it alone.

With much love,

Steffanie

A note for anyone in the fog. If you’re weighed down by grief, depression, or thoughts of ending your life — or you’re frightened for someone you love — please reach out to a real person. In the U.S. you can call or text 988 (the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) any hour of any day, and if someone is in immediate danger, call 911. Grief and depression this heavy are not meant to be carried alone or healed by willpower or diet; you deserve the support of caring people and, when you need it, a good doctor or counselor. Reaching for help is not weakness. It is one of the bravest and most loving things a person can do — for themselves, and for everyone who loves them.