A Year and One Month

It has been a year and a month since my father passed away.

I am not over the grief, the sense of longing and the melancholy over his death. I don't think I will be able to. It is not a bad thing. I believe people don't get over the death of their loved ones and let it pass. Overtime, we will learn to live with it, at the same time trying to live our own lives, flourishing as we may permit ourselves to.

It is not difficult. But there is an emptiness inside me that will never be filled again - the fatherly approval. My main goal in life was to make him proud. Now I know the goal will never be achieved in my lifetime. I live with the consoling thought that hopefully we'll meet again after I die. Then, I get to ask him, "abah, are you proud of me?"

Am I happy? Sometimes. Am I unhappy? Sometimes, too. Mostly when I am alone. When I am drowned in my own thoughts, my soul tends to self-destruct itself with the childhood memories that I am not able to let go. Something is holding my back, disallowing me from growing up. Something is telling me that I have feelings and grudges unsettled. I do. There is nothing I can do to settle it, though.

The external aspects of my life are going well. I am graduating in four months. I plan to further my studies and get into the path of an academician and a writer, like I've always wanted. I hope the plan comes true. If it doesn't, then I will truly be lost in life. For my own desires are what is captaining the ship I called my life since the previous captain had left me in a blink of an eye, without so much as a goodbye and a fair warning.

"Ruby, I am leaving now. Your life and future is in your hands now."

I wish he had said those words and allowed me some time to prepare myself. I wish I had more time with him. I wish I had been more honest with him. I wish I hugged him more often. I wish I called him more often. I wish I was kinder to him. I wish I could tell him how much my dreams are devoted to him despite our clashes. All these wishes, perhaps they are the things that have been holding my back.