As I write this post on the eve of yet another Diwali (the Festival of Lights) and almost on the eve of the 8th anniversary of my father’s passing, I asked myself why despite my world being in perfect order I feel kind of low. I don’t say this to invoke pity but special days of any meaning just have a way of reminding you of that important person who is missing from your physical world. The joyous celebrations of Diwali still does not take place in our household, that’s just how it is and it is normal.

I had a dream the other day when my father looked at me with some disappointment, I could tell from his look and his eyes he was saying please go and live, let me be. If he were here he would have said this a long while ago.  He wasn’t the kind of person to dwell on things and he never let sad events stop him from being happy.  I am not saying I am not happy because I am but  I still feel melancholy and I wonder if  special days like Diwali will ever mean much to me. When my father was around Diwali was a big deal and we celebrated it in style with mostly me running around entertaining and cooking. Now it is the opposite. Perhaps if we had marked these special days in a low key manner it wouldn’t feel so bland now. Yes, I feel I am still eating but there is no salt in the food!

I do wonder if there is an inner resistance to move on, I know I am free to let my past be and accept he has gone but lives on through me, yet I am stalling either deliberately because it is comfortable to be in this space or because I feel  unsure of what the new world will look like if I open the door…

May be losing someone so close to us always leaves a bitter sweet taste, a bitter sweet paradox between the normality of living and the normality of this huge emptiness in one’s soul with the reminder of that empty chair on special days which once used to mean so much to us both.

I can’t wait for Diwali to be over and done with and the same can be said for the new year’s day when if he were here, I would bow down to him and ask for his blessings.  I feel the same about the anniversary, 8 years may seem like a long time but I can remember the last 8 years more clearly than the many years before then.  I have just realised there is a bit of anger coming through the anger of why he gave me so much joy and why I now face this without his hand on my head.

Well, this is life and I am sure I am not the only one who yo-yos like this.  Despite what I have said about my current state of mind, I know there is hope and tomorrow I might just feel deeply grateful for the many happy memories my dad and I shared for so many years.

If someone reading this blog feels the way I do, just hang in there, aim to get through tomorrow hour by hour, remember the many blessed times you shared and look after the people who are here in your world right now.  Love hurts but it also gives us so much.

© DMP

3rd November, 2021