Everyone has seen death or maybe heard about someone dying but what do you do when it’s your ‘someone’ dying. What do you do when someone comes up to you and tells you they understand? I mean, how could they possibly? Your experience with this affliction will never be truly compatible with what others are feeling, so what is it that they understand? So you just learn to nod and say your thank yous because they will never comprehend and you are just too tired to explain.
I lost my father when I was 9, ten days before my birthday. At that moment it doesn’t matter that someone doesn’t have a father, fathers have been dying since mankind existed, but what matters is it was your father, your loss. You feel helpless and selfish at the same time. You stop thinking about your mother who lost the love of her life or your 1-month-old sibling who would never know her father. No one tells you that you are going to feel broken, that you are going to be anxious and depressed for so many years and what hurts even more, is the loss isn’t just yours. You feel robbed and you don’t want others to grieve. Complete selfishness that is!
I felt I had lost a hand. Yes, a hand. No one to hug me anymore, no one to carry me around when I am too tired to walk. No one to pat me when I get good grades and no one to clap for me with tears in his eyes when I graduate from high school. No one to hold me when I am crying and no one to wipe my tears. No one to hold my suitcase when I move out for college and no one to walk me down the aisle one day.
What hurts the most is, if you weren’t with him when he died, you would carry it around your whole life like a void. And, if you were there, you would think all the things you could have said didn’t because you thought you had time, you thought he would be back.
When your father dies, you will feel pain and you will grieve but after a while, the pain will settle, you won’t feel angry anymore, all the emotions will fade and all you will be left with is love. Love for him and his life. Some days you may forget about him when you are too busy in school or work and it might feel like a betrayal and it will hurt. Someday when it is raining and you will think of the movie you used to watch with him and the tea you made for him; or someday you will walk on a street and see someone with the similar build, you will feel a string of pain and your throat will dry up and you’ll say “I miss you every day”.“When your father dies, say the Welsh,
You sink a foot deeper into the earth
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.”