My father attended therapy with me

Dear Delyara, My father had never spoken about emotions without turning them into jokes or anger. After my brother died by suicide, our family stopped functioning quietly. I began therapy and eventually asked Dad to attend one session. He refused three times. On the fourth invitation, he arrived twenty minutes early wearing his best shirt. During the session, he sat with his arms folded and said he did not know why he was there. Then the therapist asked what he missed about my brother. Dad began describing the way my brother whistled while repairing things and could not stop. He cried so hard I moved my chair beside him. It was the first time he had cried in front of me. We have attended six sessions together. He still dislikes the word feelings and calls therapy “the appointment,” but he asks when the next one is. The victory is not that grief became easier. It is that my father stopped making silence the only inheritance he could offer his surviving child.