Day 100: When Dad Left for his Maker

Dear papa,

This heart’s broken into pieces, forever; there’s no denying that now. It bleeds barrels. I can’t seem to be able to put it together. No matter how hard I try, it crumbles like a castle, into a thousand tiny grains of sand at the slightest memory of you.

There’s an ache that threatens to never heal, an ache that’s only growing into a gigantic monster with time. This bleeding that hasn’t ceased for the last 100 days, all this blood, is all I find when I look around me. My thoughts are smeared with it; in places with drops, some others with streaks, and then some with whole oceans of it. And I got haemophobia, you know it, only you knew it, please tell me what to do? How do I wipe off these stains with you, not around anymore?

I spend sleepless nights, twisting and turning in bed for restless hours, wondering where you are, thinking if you can see me, if you can hear me, and I wish someone could answer that for me, put my thoughts to rest so I could sleep, for with you sleep also has forsaken me. And for months now, I’ve wondered if some part of my mind loved you more than I did.

I can’t seem to go on; it feels like trudging in a dark tunnel and I am groping for help, for you, for your touch, your fingers to calm my nervousness, my anxiety. But I tumble and fall, with nothing to grasp. That’s when I realise I’ve lost you forever. That’s when I realise, I hate the word ‘forever’.

Your daughter.