When my father died, it hurt like a stab from a thousand knives. No, it didn’t hurt that way. That is something they use in novels, and for someone who hasn’t felt a lot of physical pain, I’m not familiar with that. When he died, my heartbeat was still; it didn’t beat irregularly, and my hands did not tremble in a static state. The world was sane for an excellent numbing minute before my chest felt heat move through it, down to the tip of my toes.
My eyes became heavy as two dumbbells of grieve sat on their lashes. My heart began to pound like the Djembe my music teacher spoke about all the time. It wasn’t rhythmic, but it made my legs move in the same fashion. I felt broken, forsaken, the room felt smaller, and my chest felt the same compression. I could not breathe, and my body became ponderous to move. The shift from normal to insanity was swift, unidentifiable, but yet vivid. I became a mad boy who wore sanity as a cloak.
That day, I knew life was fragile; I knew life had no meaning to it. All these suffering just to end up in a wooden box dressed in your favorite suit. All this suffering just to have people say nice things about you, things you’ll never get to hear because your eyes are shut cold, and your teeth clench. People who die are the lucky ones; they do not feel pain, even though they are the ones who leave everyone behind; the preacher said they find peace.
But it is not the same for us who are left to live a life trying to fill a bottomless void. When my father died, a piece of me died too. No, again, I told a lie; a big part of me died also. I’ve never felt whole from the time I threw dirt in the 6 feet grave while my uncle held my hands because the shovel was not a tool for a 5-year-old boy.
You see, my father was my best friend. I sat on his lap when he drove around town. He would buy burgers and bring pieces of chicken to my pregnant mother. My fathers’ heart was a soft cushion; everything that fell on it remained intact. My last memory of him is us trying to fix a part in his car, and I cut myself. He carried me in his arms and rushed to the first aid box, and stitched me up good. I think we got Ice cream after. You see, the memories have started to fade, and I’m mixing up events in my head. When I told you I’m a mad boy who wears sanity as a cloak, you thought I was joking?
My mother says I’m not close to her and my brothers; her words are, “you’re emotionally unavailable.” But she has mourned her husband in her way, and I’m mourning a father the best way I know-how. The pain I felt that day was suffocating, sometimes I drown in the shower, and the thought of losing another person called family is crippling.
I know what it means to lose a parent, I know life is finite, I know one day she’ll be in a box too. I also know all these are inevitable, and we have limited time to be who we want. Regardless of this, I can’t get too close to feel deeply.
I say this because I don’t want to feel it when they die.
