MY PAIN

“…but I do recall everything you taught me, it made me a man, a good man I think.”

Real death happens in one’s mind. This is a sad piece, the pen cried too.

How familiar are you with pain? Have you ever woken up to a blank page in your heart, caused by a departed dear one? It is an experience no one envies. Waking up one day and all you have left is just a memory. Their whispers going through your mind, over and over again. It’s a struggle to accept reality and to admit that one is gone, forever.

Losing my dad in 2018 probably took the last bit of trust I had in the living because it made me realize that no one stays in your life forever. Everyone leaves eventually, either today, tomorrow or someday. And sometimes, they don’t even get to say ‘goodbye!’ It leaves you questioning many things. “Did they really care about me?” or “Wasn’t I even worth a mere goodbye?” “Maybe they didn’t care at all”

Perhaps you are only imagining it but with no relation. Painting you a picture will make me appear like a monster. I do feel like one already, so I’ll just go ahead and do it. Picture yourself having a successful Visitation Day back in high school where your dear ones show up, full of smiles, happy pictures and assurance that everything will be okay! Now fast forward to a fortnight later, all the tears you’ve lost to prayers trying to affirm their earlier assurance only to get a notice one night, four days after your birthday, from the warden and it is your mother on a call. Fighting to hold back her tears, speaking from her lowest point, telling you that your dad wants to talk to you and your sister, but in person. It did make sense at that moment because if he was signing out, atleast he had thought of you and apparently you are be picked from school the following morning. Asking you picture that night after her call equates to putting you through hell. So, I won’t.

“Doroo, the warden is calling you to his office” I’m not sure if these were the exact words I heard because I was hardly myself anymore. On reaching there, you see a familiar face, very familiar but strange this time around. Even a child could sense the fear in their eyes. The fear to tell a son that his father maybe no more. The fear to wreck his hope that his dad had asked to talk to him one last time. They did try to conceal it with a “He is fine, he just wants to talk to you”! But it was as clear as crystal that my worst fear had come to past.

That aside, think about reaching your young sister’s school and the first sight is a sobbing child, a pained child, being consoled by tears. A sight that I can never un-see. A child yet to grasp the fact that she would never get to see her dad smile again, nor hear those jokes again. What was I supposed to tell her? I do recall telling the familiar face “If he is gone, just tell us” because I could not hold back my tears any longer. She is probably the only sibling that ever saw me cry.

Every day I wake up with a thought that amnesia wouldn’t be so bad after all, maybe it would ease my pain, perhaps it would give me a blank page to formulate another story. A story with only laughter, smiles and no pain. I want to forget that instant I stepped out of the car and saw my mother, all worn out, seemingly blank on how to tell her children that their dad was gone. It wasn’t fair, she didn’t deserve to go through that. No one deserves to go through that. She sat us down and told us that dad was no more, she did carry on and told us of how he was a fighter, that he fought till the very end and that he loved us dearly. But where was this love when he left us just like that. If he really cared, maybe he could have stayed behind to watch us become something you know. But in that moment, I had to be strong. I had no right to question the dead.

For like a couple of minutes, I had lost the will to live. I remember wiping my tears and telling everyone who was there, “Why are we even crying? Can we go and eat please.” That was probably the last time someone saw my tears…

On reaching home in Lira, the sight of my younger siblings, who probably had been told that they had lost their father, the very man who himself told them that he would be back home in a few days. He did come back though, but in a fucking casket. They didn’t deserve that. They were struggling to comprehend the whole situation, the sight of people sobbing like they knew each and every quality of his even made me more pissed. But I had to smile because I knew from that very moment that I was my family’s pillar and that I wouldn’t dare crack. Seeing me smile gave them hope that everything would be fine. Maybe they saw dad in me or they found strength in me but I’m glad they did!

While on the journey, someone told me that this is not the end of the world. He said that a door had been closed but other doors were opening. But at that moment, I had no tunnel vision. I couldn’t even see beyond my nose. I told God that I wouldn’t mind if he took my life as well in an accident or something.

Do you know having to hold everyone’s tears simply because you couldn’t let yours out? Having to wait for everyone else to fall in a deep slumber so you could cry? Sitting near an open casket and praying, hoping that you could resurrect him. You probably don’t and trust me you don’t want to. But if life was actually that precious, maybe death would have held back on some people. I guess life is merely a phase, I still doubt its existence up to date.

Amnesia, are you even a thing? Because why do I have all these pain clearly printed on my memory yet I hardly even recall his smile! His voice? All faded now. I hardly recall the man I called my father. I partly blame myself for this though, because I had to hate my own deceased dad in order to move on faster than everyone else, in order to be there for everyone else. The fact that I had to label him a deserter, a runner, a coward, a man who couldn’t hold up to his part of the bargain. I had to look at my own dad as that who gave up on us like we didn’t even matter. In my dreams, he is just a blurry art, I hardly recall his face even if I try hard to. But dad, I don’t hate you anymore and I never did. I’m sorry.

That experience changes everything, it changes you. The death of Jesus birthed Christianity right? My dad’s probably birthed a monster. A monster who treats the world as a temporary element, literally and figuratively. I had to cut off many people because I don’t wish to experience that pain again. I had to limit who could be able to hurt me, family? Yes! Anyone else? No. I had to cut off expectations from everything else because I realized that I was deeply hurt because I expected that him, being my dad meant that he had to see us through this life thing no matter what, I guess I was wrong and that’s on me. He was a good father, he was a good man, a man that I may never become. He wrote his chapter in our lives and when it was over, he went back home. I hope you have wings now dad, I hope you are smiling down on us.

But besides this, Pain doesn’t justify a cruel world and doesn’t cover for one’s actions to towards everyone else. I may be low on the trust but I treasure every human I have managed to cross path with till date. The friendships I have made? They’re real. What makes one a real monster is their actions, not their personality. These actions might have been purely to keep me safe but I admit to have hurt people along the way. They didn’t deserve that. I am sorry.

I don’t know if I need me a therapist, maybe, maybe not. But for now, I am some people’s pillar of hope and strength, I cannot break down and I’ll keep on fighting every day to give them a better life. For that is my purpose. That is my pain, one I must live with, forever.

“We miss you dad” ~ The Imperfect Writer