The reason I’m writing out this story is not for sympathy but rather a call for help, a call for a home, a call for a family. My life is like a dozen of beginnings but never an ending.
I’ve never been really attractive or pretty. I’ve always been just a typical tall girl with hazel eyes and brown hair with my tiny powered freckles. I’m not ugly, but I’m nothing special either. How many times was I called beautiful by my mum who eventually made me feel ugly on the inside? It is my tears that kept my soul alive in this pain. My life has been too complicated to even truly worry about my looks. Don’t get me wrong, I like to dress well and look all pretty, but I’ve never had the chance to curl my hair in the mornings like normal girls would. I only did that stuff on photo day, even then my mum struggled to help me, and the girls at school would gaze at my look, taunt me, and spit on me in the hallways it felt like the whole world abandoned me, I felt worthless, I felt like dirt underneath a farmers boot. I never learned to cry with style, silently, my pearl-shaped tears would roll down my cheeks. I wish I would have cried in front of people at school for sympathy, but instead, I cried in empty bathrooms and darkened valleys because it would please me.
The loneliest moment in my life was when my mum left me and my dad two years ago. When I was 11, I watched my whole life fall apart and stare blankly wondering if I can ever just win the battle with the brittle voices in my head whispering, “I’m not worthy I’m not the like the rest”. Soon after my mum left, my dad got sick. Ever since then, I’ve come to familiarize myself with the hospital staff and now I’m great friends with them too. I watch people whisper and cry, and I’ve even gotten used to the sound of uneven distressed breathing, even sometimes my sleep is disturbed by a shattering siren of an ambulance from the rain-washed streets. Dad never had to stay in the hospital for more than a week before, but now it’s his place of residence and partially mine too. It is heartbreaking and depressing to witness my dad suffering like this, I feel as if my life will never go on without him. There is a void that can never be filled because there is no other love in this world like the love of a father. The thought left me with a huge gap within my heart that will never heal the rollercoaster of my emotions rips me up and tears me down. It brought an anger to my heart, an anger that I know my dad wouldn’t want me to feel, but I felt it anyway.
About a week ago, when we came here for a visit, we found out that the medication my dad was ingesting was affecting his liver, and a tumor had grown there. As much as I tried to hold it in, the pain came out like an uproar from my throat in a form of a silent scream. I have kept myself busy from worrying and overthinking too much because if I’m left alone with sickening thoughts flying in my strangely bleak head, the truth will consume me. The revolting thought of my dad's death sickened me, butterflies flew in my stomach, and my heart sank. The thoughts are wounds in my body that never show, but are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds, he is my best friend and I can’t lose him. I am fed up with sleeping in the day and laying dead at night thinking in sadness about my dad. I can’t tolerate feeling like I’m constantly alone as an outsider, even when I’m surrounded by people. I don’t want to tell people that sometimes I wish I did not exist, but this was my harsh reality and I had to face it. It’s like sitting in a room in a dark place by yourself and feeling like this is an eternity. At school, it felt like being in a place with a thousand people but feeling invisible to every single one of them. It’s like walking on a path without any directions or any idea where it will end.
“Hey, Ayesha!”, Kai shouted from a distance in the park. I looked abruptly to the sight of my best friend, his blue eyes gazed at me and his eyebrows raised as he slowly made his way towards the squeaky bench I miserably sat on, alone, isolated from the cheerful and contended families and society whose laughter and faces filled with delight and wonder surrounded my low-spirit. “How is your dad going?”, Kai asked with a soft tone with what seemed feigned worry. I knew he meant well, but this was just all despairing and unbearable for any 13-year-old high schooler to understand and take in. If I responded honestly, he wouldn’t be able to cope with it. ”Are you okay?”, he asked concerned. ”Umm... yeah, I’m okay”, I responded weakly sighing Kai. ”I was just thinking about my dad”, I solemnly muttered. ”Oh… I’m so sorry about that”, Kai responded. “How is he doing?”, Kai asked gently. I could just say that well, sweetie, he's going to die and I’m going to be an orphan, so yes, he's doing great. No, he couldn’t bear that. Hell, I couldn’t handle it and I was living it.
Soon after I received an anonymous call and picked it up, the lady said it was from the hospital, after that call, I knew my life was gonna get worse and things were never gonna change again. My dad had passed away. I was in denial that my dad could be so cruel leaving me behind, I was in shock the world around me suffered and my body felt numb. I tried opening my eyes up to reality, but nothing came, I choked on my own dry tongue. There was no air in this menacing world, the lack of oxygen dropped in my mind in a panic in desperation, I tried breathing but it burnt my lungs with the savagery that consumed me. I swear, my dad was just standing behind me, gazing at the beautiful sky that surrounded him, breathing the fresh clean air, but then the next minute he was gone. Never to be found again.
You know when you think you know someone? More than anyone in the world? You know that you know them because they’re real and alive, but then when you reach out for them to protect them, there suddenly gone, you want to see them but you can’t, you want to hear their laugh for the last time but you can't. I never experienced grief this bad before. It sneaked up on me quietly and took me under its arms in an instant. Every memory played like a piano in my head, repeating the same tune on what seemed like it would last forever. I was lost mostly because I had lost a big part of myself. I couldn’t get that part back, and I wanted it so bad as my life depended on it, but it was all gone and vanished in thin air.
You’re still resting peacefully ten feet under me, but I am not. I run to your resting place and cry my tears upon the ground, hoping they will water the beautiful roses that surrounded your grave, but instead, my tears kill it with their pain. I miss him probably more than anyone in this world. One minute I was at peace with his death, but the next I felt the heart-wrenching feeling that he is never going to come back. Hearing his name pulled at me and left me unsettled, it was miserable and upsetting to feel a loss that can never ever be replaced. All the memories we shared together flooded my mind and there are only four words that have a response to this feeling: “I love you, Dad”.