The Colour to My Night Sky
You, yourself, as much as anybody else in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
~ Buddha.
I was my father’s favorite child growing up. I don’t know why he enjoyed my company more than any of my other siblings. Maybe it was because I loved the same things that he did. I loved to twirl my spoon dramatically around my pasta just like he did whenever he was hungry, or maybe it was in the way I enjoyed listening to the same kind of classical music that he enjoyed more than anything else in the entire world.
My mother loved to scorn these songs as “old school music that belongs in the basement’s trash”, and would go on to put up a nasty frown whenever we attempted to perform karaoke together.
I would laugh and tell her she had terrible taste in music, and my father would chuckle loudly asking how he ended up with somebody with such bad tastes.
She disliked how we made a mess dancing in the house during our karaoke sessions and would go on to scowl for days as we laughed soundly at her.
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We were two peas in a pod. He was my knight in charming armor, and I, his adorable princess. Mother would always address me before Papa as his “first wife and best companion”. A statement my father would always dismiss with laughter saying that Mother only sounded like a jealous second wife.
But I knew Mother was not jealous of our relationship. She only admired the bond that existed between daughter and father. Once, she’d told me that her father had been nothing like mine. Grandpa died when I was a little over three years old, I don’t remember a lot about him, but from the stories I sometimes overheard from grandmother and my older siblings, he was a hard man who did not have a lot of smiles to share around—He was nothing like my papa.
By being referred to as my father’s “first wife” my mother only referred to our uncanny resemblance, strong unbreakable bond, and shared traits. We could sit together in the living room and gossip about worldwide political trends for unending hours.
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Every time we would argue any matter, he’d let me have the last word. Teasing me, he’d exclaim “You, my dear Barrister, would be the end of me!”
Dad and I were similar in more ways than one. Asides from the fact that we looked a lot like each other, we were both funny, intellectual, goofy, sporty, and less-tempered. Being the last born and only daughter, we goofed around a lot. I was always the first to notice whenever he was in a sour mood, or when his finances were toppling down the charts.
He’d always praise me for acing all my papers remarkably and would go on to boast before his friends, “You see Dora, my daughter, she’d do great things in this world defending justice, Martin Luther King would simply be gobsmacked!” We understood one another better, and he would always rub my head and tell me he loved me dearly—even better than any boy ever could.
Dad had always been fit, strong, and energetic. He never got tired of doing routine exercises, lifting heavy weights during the weekends, and eating everything he could lay his hands on—To my mom’s grand distaste, he had quite a large appetite.
The day he’d taught me his signature pasta ‘twirl trick’, he’d made a pot full of pasta to celebrate my “win”. Of course, my mother had thrown a huge fit when she had found out about the supposed “pasta win and victory” she’d gotten so upset and ordered me and Papa never to enter into ‘her’ kitchen, muttering that we were “more prone to waste than little children! ”
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Papa was tall and heavily built like the models you find on TV. His deep brown eyes were so mesmerizing, sometimes, I’d catch myself innocently yearning to stare into the depths of age-old wisdom resident within them.
The only downside to his brown eyes, healthy appetite, lustrous braided black hair, hearty personality, and goofy laughter was his round belly, which gave him the look of a pregnant woman in her first trimester. Mother would always say if he’d cut down on his food, maybe his tummy would finally bring a long-expected child to life.
Other than this, papa rarely got sick, and he was my icon of hope, faith, love, joy, and strength. Whenever I had a problem in school, I just had to think of what papa would do instead, and voila! I’d find myself smiling with a pleasant answer.
On the 3rd of June 2017, papa was diagnosed with Stage Four Cancer. It was my second year in senior school. Walking through a quiet field one summer afternoon, he’d informed me quietly. The Doctors said it was malignant enough to take Papa away from us forever. Even he, with his jovial spirit, goofy smile, and physical impending strength could not survive this monster that was fast festering on his insides. The entire family had been managing the news for a while, I was the last one to find out. Obviously, they’d all been afraid of my reaction.
At first, the news had been too much to take in, and I dealt with it the only way I knew how; crying my eyes and senses out; shutting myself from the world for days; and walking around the hallways in school like a zombie lost in numerous thoughts. The only thing I had on my mind was how unfair life could be. How life wanted to snatch away the only friend I had.
I began to hate my Papa for doing this to me—as if it was his fault. Even if I knew I was being stupid and irrational for blaming him, I couldn’t help myself. I was too caught up in raging emotions to think clearly.
I watched papa change before my eyes.
Papa’s sickness started to show with his appetite. The doctors put him on Chemotherapy which made him have no care for food—not even Pasta!
His deterioration was heart wrenching and brutal. His skin looked pale, and his full hair was shaved off completely. How did he alter rapidly from a healthy, goofy, and energetic man who loved to have unending political arguments to this small, and shrunken doppelganger that was too sick to even manage a smile?
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It was hard to stay strong for him during the entire process. It was hard to see him like I used to before any of this had to happen.
With time, life became a battle for him. It was extremely difficult to breathe, and I could see his muscles tighten in pain every time he attempted to smile at me during my weekly visits. It was a tough time for me, and more than this, it was tougher and extremely unbearable for him.
I hated visiting the hospital, and I knew Papa hated having to stay there also. I wished we could just bring him back home, but mom insisted it was best he remained closer to the machines and doctors.
When you enter the hospital, the world seems to change like a curtain has been drawn— separating the healthy and the sick. The first indicators were usually the beeping machines that seemed to count down to a patient’s day of death. The smell of doctors, latex, salines, and disinfectants would cause your nose to stink. I hated these visits, but I knew it was unavoidable. I had to be there for Papa.
Throughout the entire process, I kept hoping, praying, and wishing for a miracle to save my best friend’s life.
The heavens were shut against my voice.
A few months after, Papa died on the 2nd of September after a long battle with cancer. I thought my life would end with his too. The very shackles that held my world were destroyed with his death—I couldn’t think of a life that didn’t have papa in it.
After the funeral, with papa gone, I changed too. I became the opposite of everything I was known to be. I shut the world out and continued to let the hurt fester for a long time.
I began to lose interest in everything around me—school work, extracurricular activities, friends, family—I wanted to stay away from everybody—no one seemed to fill the gap that papa had left behind. With time, my thoughts began to take on a scary alternative. I began to entertain suicidal thoughts as a way to overcome this stuffy grief.
I’d sit in the classroom and watch all the teachers ramble about science, biology, and Botanics from one class period to the other, and all that would mean absolutely nothing. I only wanted to end my life.
I did not have a purpose in this world without Papa. I felt unlike myself without him, and the futility of life weighed depressingly on my shoulders. I moved like a shadow, my mind consumed with only one passion: how to end my life quickly. At school, I’d skip all the extracurricular activities. I avoided all groups and stayed away from sports practice even with Coach’s obvious disapproval. I deliberately skipped drama classes, even though I enjoyed acting best in the world.
I lost my passion for a lot of things.
With time, everyone noticed there was something wrong with me, but none of them cared to ask. Sometimes, I’d look the teachers in the eyes as I lackadaisical answered a question in class, silently willing them to notice the grief mirrored within my soul. Late one night after school, I had sat in my room and cried my eyes out and out again like I did every day. Silently willing papa to come back.
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That day, I made the final resolve to end it all. I had no business in this world anymore —maybe God would be kind enough to let me into heaven with papa. I had to end my life and I knew that was the only way to dispel my unending sorrow.
Pen and paper in hand, I began to eulogize an apology letter to my mother, explaining why I had to do it, and the feelings I have had to harbor within me after papa’s sudden demise.
As I continued to write all this down, I realized that this was the peace that I sought. I needed somebody to talk to. And the only reason why the burden appeared to be so heavy—sinking me slowly to the ground —was because I’ve held on to sorrow for too long, I needed to make somebody understand. I needed somebody to listen to me again. Somebody to help me understand this new feeling.
There I stood, paper in hand, and there I realized that death would never be the solution to ending sorrow. I had to find somebody to talk to. And that was all the magic I needed. That night, I filled my journey with all my fears, emotional anger, loss, and insecurities. Of how much I missed Papa, and how It didn’t feel like I could do anything right without his counsel.
I wrote down everything, and for the first time since Papa’s burial, I felt lighter as an unspoken peace washed over me. I felt relieved. That night I walked over to Mother’s room and told her everything.
She read my journal countless times, we both cried and hugged, and I slept in her bed realizing that Death would never have helped me feel any better. Talking about your feelings no matter how difficult it appears is the first giant step to liberation and freedom to catching the reins of joy again.
Speaking up is the first route to freedom.
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