I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I feel it is so unfair to have lost my father. If he were still around He would, very predictably, tell me that life isn’t fair. I know he is right, but I still feel that way.
This is my first attempt at a letter to my father. I feel like this is something a psychologist would tell me to do, or prescribe as a way or dealing with my father’s death, so here I am doing it.
I feel like I should have some dramatic intro since its the first time I’m writing him. I don’t. I’m not even sure it will all be written as a letter to him. Alright no more stalling here it goes.
Right after you died and while you were sick a lot I people tried to get me to talk about it. They said it would help, that it’d help me cope with your death. I have no doubt that they were right. But, how can you talk when you don’t know what to say? When you don’t understand what you are feeling?
I often wonder what you would have told me to do? Maybe you wouldn’t have said anything? It wasn’t really like you or mom to give advice. It’s sort of interesting how when someone dies or I lose someone that person is the only person I feel will be able to soothe my grief. Of course their presence would soothe the pain since it would mean they wouldn’t have died or left. But I think the sense of loss goes a bit further.
When someone dies or when I break up with someone in a romantic relationship it’s not just their presence that is missed. I’m not simply mourning the loss of a person. And that person isn’t simply mourning my loss. Since we shared a relationship together we are mourning the loss of that relationship. Since it, the relationship, is something that we shared together, where others are pushed to the fringe (of that particular relationship) when it is gone the only person who can comfort me is you. Because you are the only one who ‘truly’ knew what that relationship was like. I don’t have to explain it to you you just get it, the sense of loss. It’s not even that our relationship was anymore special or meaningful than anyone else’s its just that it was between us. That’s what makes it so hard is that I know I can’t have that feeling back. I know I can’t have that relationship back.
That’s all for now. I’ll write again soon.
A Roots Search 
Hey Kumar – really good post. I think you’ve hit on something very true: it’s not just the company of the person you miss, it’s the relationship. It’s also powerful that you said that you would have written it sooner, but didn’t know what to say. It reminds me of something I read in, maybe Romans?, somewhere in the Bible, and the writer said that God’s spirit prays within him with groans that can’t be expressed in words. What you said reminded me of that. Sometimes our feelings are so overwhelmingly powerful – and new – that we can’t quite find the words that match them. Maybe there aren’t words that match them. But you were able to write this post, and that’s good.
I wish I had known your dad so I could say what he would have said to this post. Admitting that I don’t know him, I imagine that, as someone who loves you and valued your relationship he would read this and say “well done.”
LikeLike