Entering the park, remnants of my childhood memories started to re-emerge. A slight breeze rustled the leaves making them fall to the concrete ground one by one. The air was warm, and the beams of sunlight glowed onto my skin, providing me with comfort. The sounds of parents playing with their children was enough to completely push me back in time and pour my mind with sentimental memories.
My late father and I would spend every summer afternoon in the local park right after he picked me up from school. We would lie on our backs and stare at the sky, observing the swirling clouds transform into fantastical shapes. We would grip imaginary weapons and spar, thrusting our swords as if we were ninjas. My earliest memories are filled with images of my father in these moments, laughing as he marched into the large sandpit and gently pushing me on the swings. And now, as I stand on the same park, almost fifteen years later, I can’t help but think of the pain that he experienced during his final years.
My father would often travel overseas and be absent for months on end before returning home. As an author, he ventured out into new territories to help stimulate his imagination. When he did return, he would read aloud his novel as I listened fervently.
In each trip, he was always looking for a perfect place; a place he believed was more spectacular than the Seven Wonders of the World that would help him write the most evocative novel. It was his obsession. His life’s work had all been spent on attempting to find one. Whenever he was home, I would sit outside the door, my knees cuddled into my chest, and listen to the sound of his pen scrawling away. His heavy sighs and the sound of crumpling paper often seeped through the walls. Every now and again, he would burst through the door, gleefully picking me up and spinning around in excitement. We would dance around the living room and sing joyously. However, as time progressed, those moments occurred less and less.
Despite how much I wanted to avoid it, his sickness was something I had known for a while. His great voyages out across the world gradually came to a stop and his time at home seemed to linger on forever. He locked himself in his study, consumed by the desire to finish the novel he was attempting to write. The disease rooted deep within his mind grew, puncturing every memory it could find with its deadly thorns. He became irrational, obsessed with finishing his novel and finding the perfect place before it became too late. He would often find me sitting outside his room. However, instead of his warm gesture, he would thrust a pale, slender arm towards the living room, yelling, “Go away!”.
The father I once idolized was now nothing more than an old bitter man. I could recall the many times when he would pack his leather suitcase only to remember that he no longer had anywhere to travel to. One day, my mother and I heard a loud thud transpire from within my father’s study. Immediately rushing over, we pounded on the door with the sides of our fists, praying that nothing had happened to him. When he emerged from within, streams of sweat came pooling down the sides of his frail face. On the ground, the novel he was working on lay defeated, with ripped pages flying everywhere.
Pulling myself out of the past, I fastened my mind back into the present. It destroyed me to think that my father had died a broken, defeated man, one who lost track of who he originally aspired to be. My father had once taught me to dream and follow through with my goals. I hoped his inner self was still present when he passed. I pulled out the unfinished novel he was working on, with pages glued back together, and placed it on a tree stump situated at the very heart of the park.
The perfect place was already in front of him the entire time. The park.