My beloved Father passed away on 22nd July 2014. It has been a week since.
I’m pretty sure my Dad just stopped existing and what we have of him now is his worldy possessions and his cremated remains. I am skeptical about the spirits and the afterlife, when I am weak I pray to my Dad asking him ‘How is he?’, when I am sober and clear, I tell myself that my Dad is dead and his spirit (even if it exists) has left us. And now our future and short term goals change and my Dad is no longer in the picture.
Such is the cold hard truth.
Honestly, I find cold hard truths comforting, as they do not change according to someone’s whim. And this cold hard truth of my Dad’s sudden passing is a constant reminder that everyone comes and leaves alone, and it is the short time we have on this Earth that we try to fill it with as much kinship, friendships and wonderful things as possible.
I don’t know how I can collect bits and pieces of my Dad’s life and make it into something memorable. I have a wish to print his musings, prose and letters into a book.
What I got a harsh reminder from his death is how bad procrastinating is, how urgent life is that it waits for no one, and if you don’t make it for what you’ve been given, you do not get back any second chance at it. I have procrastinated bringing my parents on a family trip, and there I’d forever be regretful of never going to have the chance to do that anymore.
I earnestly want to make it up by bringing my mother on many trips, creating as much experiences with her as possible before our lives as we live it now changes.
In some little way I am grateful of the impetus my Dad gave me. I’d have to work as hard as possible to make it up for his absence. I need and will grow up, throwing away all silly childishness and put family as top priority.
Health is so very important. I promise to take my mother on regular checkups especially it is during her menopause period. I’d have to start earning much more money than now, so that when disaster hits again, I am prepared and able to spear through it.
I am regretful that I used to take my happiness for granted.
My past 25 years has been so blissful now I feel ashamed of myself that I was discontented from time to time. My close-knitted family has stayed together through thick and thin, no betrayal no cheating no hate towards one another. My parents are loving and they love each other despite their daily bickering and nagging each other. How could I have not appreciated the lively at-go earlier, but miss it so much now.
I am my father’s continuation, and I promise to live up to his expectations. I will never leave them and will always be where they need me.
Only when he is gone do I realize how much influence he has on me. He is in my mind constantly. I can have conversations with him as if he is still alive. He is my guide to life, and he will continue living his life through me. We both have an analytical mind, mine was wild and wandering and sometimes lost, I had him to go to when I got lost and he will bring me back, and I trust that he is a catch-save in my mind now, and I can still go to him when I am lost.
I appreciate all the efforts of friends and relatives here that helped making life after his death much easier by helping out with worldly matters which me and my mom are not equiped enough to handle without stress. We had enough time and care for us to grieve for my Dad, and not much negative feelings has been collected and not released.
It is rather regretful that I am not able to pay my respects to my dying Grandmother. I am very grateful for her, if not for her there won’t be me, and that she is strong and loving, and she especially doted on my Dad. If I believed in the afterlives, I hope they will be reunited in the same realm and they can catch up on life in the afterlives without the pain and troubles of worldly matters. My thoughts go out to them always.
My Dad has prepared me well for his leaving. He knew that given how close we are, I’d have a hard time accepting this loss. I am apprehensive of going back to our home and having to face the raw disappointment of him not being there, and having to go through all of his belongings.
Sometimes I feel that there is a poetic coincidence in how things happen that I have suspect he knew it all already.