Grief and other stories

My world shattered but I didn’t realise it.

“Happy birthday, my little girl. Come home and we’ll eat your favourite chicken noodle together,” he texted me with a picture of a bowl of chicken noodle. I read the message and felt warmness all over my body.

It was my 26th birthday and I was in Aotearoa, the country that I had been living for years. My dad had been asking me to come home at that time. He was worried about me being too comfortable living in a foreign place, and never coming back home again. I was, in fact, planning to stay longer. But I decided to cancel, and considered coming to Aotearoa again for my graduation.

One year later, my dad has gone. We never got to eat the chicken noodle on my birthday together. And will never again.

I didn’t cry on his funeral. Probably because I tried to look tough in front of my mother, brother, and entire family. Or maybe because everything felt unreal. I didn’t cry much later on, even though people kept telling me that I could cry as much as I wanted.

I never realised that grief takes many forms and that people experience it in different ways. Some cry in the first days or weeks, while some others do not cry at first, but will break down any time unexpectedly. I was, and still am, the latter. My dad was my world, my first love, and when he passed, my world shattered but I didn’t realise it. I was in complete denial.

I didn’t realise that I became a different person. I wasn’t as motivated as I used to be. I had difficulties to focus on my work and lost interest in things that I used to love. I even stopped reading and writing. This went on for months that I thought I had turned into a lazy person. Little did I know that it was part of my grief, as my dad used to be the person I always tried to prove myself to. So when I lost him, I lost the person that I would work hard for, too.

Everything has gotten better now. My world remains shattered, but I’m picking up the pieces and start building a new life. I have gotten ambitious again. I wake up in the morning and look out of the window, thinking that I have been blessed. My dad would want me to be happy, so I should.

I still cry over small things that remind me of my dad. I cry when I eat my favourite chicken noodle, when I go for a ride that my dad and I used to do, and when I encounter a song that my dad liked. The other day on a Sunday morning, I cried when I went for a breakfast with my husband. My dad used to like eating soto on a Sunday morning. I do it with a different person now.

My dad was always the strongest person I knew. So when he got really sick, I thought it was just another episode of him being slightly ill. It would be selfish of me to wish that he is still here. He was suffering, and now he is in a better place. I pray that he doesn’t feel pain again.

I lost my father. But I know that forever lies ahead of me, so it’s time to start being happy again.