Dear Father

 Dear Father,

I don’t know if it’s a universal sense, a heavenly intervention, or lack of worldly wisdom to think that I can hardly breathe knowing that sickness and death are knocking my father. I can still clearly remember how my tears became a character of indifference. It’s a different season to face that your parents are getting old and bones and flesh are getting weaker. I hated and loved my father. We fought and forgave. He kept saying “just pray” but he never carried the burden with me.

He is my first heartbreak and it kills me to think that I care and do not at the same space and same time. I feel both of indifference and love. I can still remember he told me to fix my own problem because he couldn’t do something about it.

Maybe he really cared but he was masking his love through cruelty. The very thing that haunts me is that I act like I don’t when I heard the news but my heart was racing to win the war of pride and love. His life built a legacy in my life to not choose someone who depends, who angers, who shouts, and who gaslights a partner. But maybe, my life is meant to become the bigger person. And maybe my mother had faults and maybe she always worries that led my father to act unlikely things in return.

To fathom the fact that I am weak and easily shaken but I have to stand in the storm and be like rock in the sand just to continue what I started is a dearth to my worldly soul. Perhaps, this will lead nowhere or to tell you that grace is sufficient. I don’t want to sound biblical but if nature and divine intervention manifest, then, I may be devoted. Aside from the things you may leave in this world Pa, one thing I will always grasp is you saying, “pray always”.

You taught me to become strong and vulnerable in my own ways. Love and bravery are indeed the greatest legacy you stroke in me.