An Essay to the parent who died.

I wrote my first graded essay for English a couple of years back. I got an A! Isn’t that great? ‘It must be personal, and must tell me something about you,’ I knew exactly what I was going to write about – it wasn’t dissimilar to the story I wrote when I was 10 years old.

Not as depressing as it could have been, I had written about you. I told the reader who was only there to grade my use of vocabulary and metaphors the condition that took your life, where I had been when it happened, and how long I had taken off school to grieve. It was cathartic to let an invisible face in on what I had been carrying around for – at that time – seven years.

‘He was always there is spirit, helping me through my toughest moments.’

That essay was for you, it was my literary thank you for being an invisible force that helped me complete the last stretch of my two-day hike when my feet blistered and my skin burnt, the thank you for being my motivation to earn my red, yellow, and orange belts in kickboxing when the exhaustion was overbearing.

I will not rewrite everything I thanked you for and gave you credit for in this essay – even though it’s still for you. I am instead retelling my essay through different eyes and a different mindset. It has now been 10 years since you died, and I realised in my essay I had not told a story nor thanked you for something during the years you were alive. Was I thanking you for something you did? Or for something I did whilst thinking of you? How far can I thank you for being with me in spirit and being the source of my motivation and inspiration? When in reality you weren't there at all?

I went to university to do physics, and I still thank you for that, for the only reason I took physics in high school was to be a mechanic because that is what your job was – and I wanted you to be proud that I was following your footsteps. I instead found my love for physics outside of you – and yet when I think of how far I’ve come, I always think of you more instead.

I wrote my second graded essay for English the year after the first. I got an A in that one as well. You were in it, but you felt more like an overarching theme, or a character that’s mentioned for plot but not actually included in the story. I wrote about myself this time, and I wrote about my family. I realised I hadn’t been thanking the person I should have been thanking every day. My two-day hike was through my high school, and my mum paid for it so that I could go, experience camping with my friends and put it on my CV for university. I remember her picking me up, and running a bath for me and helping fix my blistered and burnt skin as much as she knew how to. It was mum who paid for my kickboxing classes, and on the morning of my gradings, would wash and iron my kit and drive to the club. Whilst I was finding motivation and pushing forward by thinking of you, my mother was sitting in the waiting room for hours without food or a break, giving me a thumbs up and a smile whenever I remembered to look her way.

I have gone to university this year, moved out and into a flat with new friends. Mum isn’t particularly good at maths, but she's helped me get into my flat, and she texts me every morning. She will lend me money so I can go for drinks with my friends. I like to be proud of myself, and you will always be a part of every success. I don't think it's a bad thing to thank the parent that died, but I believe it’s time to also start thanking the one who lived.