My father passed away more than a year back. How do you bounce back from that? From the most favorite person of your life passing away? The most important one, the one you looked up to, the one you wanted to prove yourself to? What purpose do you have left in your life? How do you go from one day to another? How do you go to your house and stare at the rooms and always feel like waiting for someone who is never going to show up? How do you wash the old bike again and again making it spotless only to leave it in the garage with no one to look after it? What do you tell the cat who wont eat anything unless it sees the old hands that fed it? How do you go through their stuff , see the bits and pieces that they left behind of themselves, the newspaper clippings, the magazines, the diaries ? How do you sleep in that house that always feels haunted by the person who built it? And when those initial days are over and the rest of the world expects you to move on, how do you laugh and smile even when everything inside you feels empty?
I used to mock people who believed in the after life, people who used to say they would do anything to bring their favourite person back. But in those initial days of grief, I understood how that felt. I am not saying I did something stupid tho, just that I knew what it was like, the desperation. One moment you are at your college, planning a trip for the upcoming weekend, and in the next, you get a call to come home as soon as you can. Not knowing what happened, you call your dad to confirm , and you realise why it was your brother who called you and not your dad. From that day onwards, I started classifying everything as Before Dad Died and After Dad Died. I mean now I understand the BC and AD system. You know, Dionysius Exiguus must have loved Christ as much as I loved my dad.
I wish he was there for my graduation. I fought with him and did not go to the college he wanted me to go. I deliberately chose another path. Every time I felt like giving up, I told myself that I had to make my dad proud. Also to prove to him that I would succeed. I knew he wanted me to. I knew that was his dream. And the worst part is if I had chosen the path he asked me to, I would have graduated a year ago, successful or not, he would have been there to see me.
I know I am just babbling, but I am glad I got to write atleast this. Its been so long since I have been able to write anything about me.
VersesInRed 