Day 365: When Dad Left for his Maker

Dear papa,

You’re gone a year today and you’ll want to know this.

I don’t cry today. I don’t look back. I don’t ponder over the ifs and whys? I don’t think it matters. I don’t curse anyone. Nor do I regret life. But let me tell you this, I also feel I don’t have the heart anymore, to turn to a new page, ever again. Because I don’t know how I can ever be!

You’re gone a year today and you’ll want to know this.

I’m not bitter anymore. I’m not angry with God. Mom says, God needed you more than we do. I know she is trying so hard to console me. As though I was a child again. Like the time you convinced me that eating ice-cream wasn’t good because invisible monsters got into your mouth and ate away your teeth, just so you could keep me from aggravating my cold. She tries too hard, dad. She does. I pretend to understand, dad. I do.

You’re gone a year today and you’ll want to know this.

I don’t long for late night calls anymore asking me if I had my dinner. I don’t crave messages reminding me to take a hot water bag because my back hurts so much after  a long day. I don’t watch Bruce Lee movies anymore. I quickly skim past National Geographic because those animals and their instincts don’t make sense anymore. I don’t read your diaries when I’m low because I am low all the time. And those pages melt in my palms, weeping, requesting they can’t give me what I seek between their words.

You’re gone a year today and you’ll want to know this.

I am living with two constant companions – the fact that you won’t ever be around and memories of you that chase me so hard. At times, I can’t tell one from the other and I ball them up together and hurl them into the sea of oblivion that surrounds me all the time. No sooner have I done that, I feel them crawling up my skin, so I shake my legs frantically to get rid of them. I don’t want them around anymore, dad. Because they make me weak. And you always said to shrug off of what pulls you down.

You’re gone a year today and you’ll want to know this.

I am not only what you made me. But wearing scars from what time gave me. You’ll be happy to know that your girl is not the little one you left behind. She is a woman she can hardly recognise. Because the sun that went down with you, never came back up in the sky.

 

Forever,

Your daughter.

~~~~~

Dad passed away this day a year ago. I could only muster up so much resolve so as to write him this letter. Wherever he is, I hope my words reach him.

The past year has been tough for me and my family. Thanking each and everyone of you who has been with us, all this time. I have no words!

~~~~~
Asha Seth