The Day That My Dad Finally Spoke Was When He Was Dead...

My hands shook - a clear warning from my body that I wasn’t ready for what was about to happen. A warning that I should drop the trembling book in my hands that triggered all the weak parts of my soul.

Put it down. My instincts controlled my hands, trying to shake the black leather journal out of them. And with every tremor I thought about letting go.

I thought about how badly I wanted my heart to stop beating so loudly in my head, reverberating along with the thoughts that I couldn’t seem to quiet. It was all here. In this book. The ingredients to my insanity and the ice to soothe my burning questions.

Just open it. I managed to tighten the grip with my fingers, grabbing a hold of my control along with the sweat soaked journal that taunted me.

I looked around my room just one more time making sure that I was alone. It was silly. I’d always been alone. Well before today I was alone in this house yet with someone there. It had always been my dad and I, just the two of us.

It was ironic in a messed up kind of way but I had always thought of my dad as a ghost, even before he died, floating around the house. Not once did he utter a word but you could feel his presence when he entered the room. The bitterness, the anger, it was always there, but yet not a word. Not when I asked about what happened to my mother, not when I asked why he barely looked my way, not when I asked why he even gave me food and books and all the things you’d give to your loved ones if he didn’t even love me. If he did I wouldn’t feel alone when he was always there.

So why now was this so hard? After 18 years I’d finally unlock the secrets to my father’s silence. At least that’s what the hastily written note at the top of this journal said. I felt guilty staring at it instead of my father but it was in his hands resting on top of him when I found him this morning, peacefully passed in his sleep. He meant for me to see it.

The note said: “To my daughter. You’ve always wanted me to speak. But that’s only possible if I’m dead.”

The doctors later said that it was old age that took him. He really wasn’t that old but the strain he constantly felt was too much for his body, aging him beyond his years. The doctor may have said more but I hadn’t been paying much attention, how could I when I kept replaying the words my father had written over and over in my head.

I looked at the note now, hours later. I pulled my blanket around my knees and took a deep breath. I deserved to read this book, I convinced myself. I deserved to know why the only person in my life wanted nothing to do with me. I opened the first page, the anticipation itching all over my body. I choked up at the first words.

Dear Lily. I had never once heard my father say my name. I knew what it was because it was written on my birth certificate, but he had not once said it. It was a simple thing to want him to say it but I yearned to hear it come out of his mouth more than anything. I read on.

Your name is like the flower. Your mom’s favourite. I thought the name was a little silly at first, but your mom was so excited about the thought of it so I couldn’t bear to change her mind. I wish you could’ve seen the happiness on her face when she held you for the first time. It’s the image I held onto when she passed later that day. I’m not proud to say that if I didn’t hold onto that image, I may not have been able to hold onto you, to not give you up the second that I saw your mother’s heart line go flat. I pictured her beautiful face with tears streaming down them looking onto your face with so much love. I pictured her face and how much yours already looked the same and decided that my greatest gift to her would be if she lived on through you. That’s why I never got close to you, Lily.

I was close to my two brothers, one a year older than me and the other year younger. They were my best friends so much so that I didn’t need any other friends. I remember the ache I felt when a man in a uniform came to my house one day and made my parents cry with a few emotionless words: “Your sons have been drafted to go to war.” I remember the frustration when I found out that I hadn’t been drafted. That I was chosen to stay. And a few days later because of that, I was chosen to live. They had died on the battlefield yet I had gotten the fate worse than death. I was chosen to live on without them. My parents were so heartbroken that they couldn’t eat. I tried to get them to be strong because I needed them to be strong for me but it was useless. A few years later starvation and neglect for their bodies took a toll on my mother and then months after my father as well and I went from having the happiest family in the world, to having no one at all.

When I met Maryanne everything changed. She brought happiness back into my life and started talking of a future and of a family. I felt the happiest that I had ever felt. I had love back into my life and would be able to have a family again. I thought that maybe fate really was on my side. But when she died from birth complications before we even got the chance to get married I knew that fate wasn’t on my side. I knew that everyone that I loved was cursed to die. So I knew that to keep you alive for my Maryanne, I couldn’t love you.

I was forced to stop reading, the burn in my eyes making it hard to continue on. My body shook as I sobbed. Guilt washed over me in an uncontrollable wave. I spent years hating my father for not being there for me like a dad was supposed to be but he had gone through things even worse than I could imagine. Yes I didn’t have a father or a mother but he knew pain worse than I could know - he had everything and then lost it all. He lost it all but still chose to love me. I didn’t see it before, the love, but as much as he thought he wasn’t loving me it had to be love keeping him away from me. I read on.

I can’t apologize enough for the loneliness I bore onto you. But seeing your bright future ahead of you pushed me to give you space. You’ll do what no one else that I’ve loved has done. You’ll live, Lily. I’m leaving you with $200,000. I know it could never amass for everything that I never gave you, but it’s my gift to you for your future. Take it and live. I’m finally joining Mark, Jim, Maryanne and my parents in heaven and together we’ll watch you in admiration. My dearest Lily, I hope beyond anything that my actions brought more good than not, and that even after the thunderstorm...you can still blossom.

The money was taped to the last page, the thickest wad of cash I had ever seen. This money could take me to college, I could finally pursue acting like I had always wanted to, a passion acquired from finding the joy of escaping my own lack luster world. But little had my Dad known that the true thing that I valued most in this moment was the journal the little black book that I had feared so much. Because it was powerful enough to calm the storm that was brewing inside of me for years.

After hours later in my room sitting in silence, I finally drifted off to sleep. In my dreams, I swear I could see my Dad smiling at me with his loved ones standing around him. He was holding a pot in his hands, and a bud was starting to blossom.