Ripped Apart We are a family ripped apart by death. To call us a family would be a gross overstatement. We are three beings, tied loosely by a common name and home, oblivious to each others’ existence. Our primary pillar has collapsed. Our name, the one we held so dear to our heart, the magnet that held us together has lost its force. Previously one bulletproof entity of love and support formed through the familial connection of four people, now a randomly tossed around amalgamation of three people whose hopes, fears, dreams, and lives no longer intertwine. It pains me to witness the disintegration of this once flawless family unit. Not only does it intensify the extent of my mourning for my father (as if I needed that) but I now also find myself mourning the connection, the unity, the love. I have not only lost a father. I have lost a family. I’ve lost a sense of security. A sense of rootedness. A togetherness. So, yes, I envy peoples’ families. When someone, even in passing, mentions what they did with their father last week or what he used to say to them or where they’re going on holiday next Spring, a pang of sadness and jealousy finds itself puncturing my chest. Its no longer a sense of ‘why me,’ though. That is long gone. I have to come to accept my inevitable fate of constant sadness and mourning. That to me no longer comes as a surprise but indeed a certainty and, ironically, an expectation for the days, months, and years to come. It is, however, a sense of longing. Longing like I’ve never known. Laced with soul-crushing sadness, and years worth of memories, this longing integrates itself into every vein in my body and thus encompasses me and every thought that crosses my mind. It is in every heartbeat, every flinch, and every blink. It is in every action I take and every word I say. Its in this paragraph and this full stop. To be frank, I have no idea where this post is going - as always. I just had a collection of feelings I had to set in *electronic* stone just to make sure I wasn’t going insane. I want my family, I want everything thats been stolen from me, I want whats been ripped away straight from my core. I want to hear your footsteps trudging their way up the stairs as you make your way towards the bedroom after spending endless hours laboring away in your office. I want to smell your citrus-laden hands that, every morning without fail, peeled two oranges meticulously and flawlessly before, as per your ritual, eating them whilst dissecting every headline in today’s paper - already stained now with your orange-juiced finger prints. I want to see another crossword puzzle filled perfectly and strewn beside your bed on the floor as you tossed it after the mental challenge of completing it drained you and you fell into a deep sleep that the whole house feared waking you up from. I want you to tell me to clean my room. To switch off the lights. To study at a table and not in bed. To stop writing on my hand. To shine my shoes. To say goodnight. Its the little things, dad. The damn little things that rip me apart.
