I Lost My Favourite Person

Death is the ultimate truth in life, we all know we’re going to die, and yet it remains the most traumatic experience in human existence.

I didn’t lose a child, spouse, or sibling. I lost my dad, which is in accordance with the natural order of things. By all accounts, I was blessed to have had him for as long as I did, and I was blessed to not have to see him sick or in pain.

Still, it was traumatizing being told that my dad would possibly not survive his injury. It was traumatizing watching his pupils slowly stop reacting to light, and his fingers and toes stop responding when pinched.

My dad’s passing was sudden, but not a ‘here one moment, gone the next’ passing. I had driven him to the ER to get the bump on his head checked, a result from a fall. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that would be the last time I’d see him conscious.

Had I known I would be losing him, I would have talked to him until I lost my voice. I would have inhaled his scent and let it linger inside my head. I would have laughed with him as much as the occasion would have allowed. I would have laid my head one last time on his shoulder and felt his head prop against mine. I would have sat like that until our time ran out.

As the bleeding in his brain progressed, exacerbated by the blood thinners he was on, he fell into a coma in the middle of the night. The doctors’s said there wasn’t anything they could do, and we should say goodbye. My brain went into self-preservation mode, and I slipped into denial. He held on for nine days in the hospital, just long enough for me to come to some flimsy form of acceptance.

After he passed, I wondered relentlessly, why can’t we know when people are going to die? Life’s one design flaw, or at least the most glaring. How much better we would handle grief if we just knew. We would live differently. We would cherish our last moments. We wouldn’t have regrets.

I suppose one caveat would be that every occasion approaching the fateful day would be tainted with sadness. Moments would be experienced not in their purity but under the shadow of death.

The day after his cremation was the ash ceremony and the finality of his existence hit me like a cement block. My dad, a once living, breathing human being with a beautiful personality and incredible sense of humour, who pushed me on the swings and never failed to buy me birthday cake year after year, is now ashes. That day I learned what it truly meant to cry one’s heart out.

Somewhere in the two week bustle of his last rites, I found myself alone with his portrait at the prayer alter. He had fought, held on for nine days, not wanting to leave, and I know when the time came, he did with a heavy heart.

I wanted him to be at peace and happy, not worried about us. As I stared at his picture, understanding washed over me. That’s exactly what he wants for me, to be at peace and happy. If I’m sad, he is sad. If I’m happy, he is happy.

My dad had been my source of joy. I’d think of him and feel warm fuzzies inside. Thinking of him now brings heartache and tears. I wondered if I’d ever feel pure happiness without a twinge of sadness when my thoughts inevitably turned to my dad. I don’t want him to become a source of sorrow. He is not a dark cloud during happy moments and turning him into that is doing my beautiful dad a disservice. He would never want to have that affect on my life. I want to remember him fondly. I want him revel in my happiness along with me.

Easier said than done, the grief is fresh, but he was so much more than his passing. He was the greatest dad in the world, and I’m blessed to be his daughter. I will honour his memory by choosing happiness.