The day I was orphaned

In the drawing of the house I am going to build in the middle of this year, there is a room for three. The room is on the ground floor, so that the father has to go up and down, the three legs are inherently weak. The window opens where a trellis will be planted, each evening giving off a fragrant aroma.

In this summer’s plan, the whole family will go to Can Gio to see monkeys, go to Phu Quoc island to swim and watch corals. If you have a lot of money, you can fly to the North, visit your friend’s house in the midland, see how the palm tree is “face” in real life.

In the big and small plans, far and near, nothing predicts the loss situation. Even when Dad went to the doctor and found out that he had K, the terminal stage. During the examination and dissection, we were never accompanied by the thought: hurry up, hurry up…

Image for illustration purposes only – Rapixel.com

So that night in the morning, when I was sleeping soundly and woke up from my mother’s call, I was driving and comforting my father, trying to get to the hospital, I felt so hard to believe. So were my restless steps up and down the emergency room door, indescribably restless.

The moment of sitting in the ambulance moving to the hospital with the father lying dormant next to him no longer recognizing the eldest daughter he lived with for many years, probably haunted my whole life. I reached out and patted: “Dad, don’t be afraid, I have a baby, Dad”. Even when the medical staff asked me if I wanted to bring my loved ones home, or “still still have water”, I tried to ask my father’s opinion. Is it that you want to be here with the doctor, or you want to go home with the kids… Even though I know in my heart, it’s all just to comfort my own spirit.

Am I doing something wrong? Did I make the wrong decision? Why is everything so sudden? With that disease, people can still endure for a few years, even more than a dozen years, or at least a few months… Why, my father left my mother and sisters so quickly that I was shocked…

“I regret it because there are many things that I was going to do for my father, but I keep procrastinating and end up being late.” That sentence, my sister texted her, on the day three cities held ashes, lying in a crock pot, quietly on the altar. I advise you not to think too much, my father doesn’t blame me, sisters, let’s move forward and live well, take care of each other, that’s fine.

I speak to you as I speak to myself.

The worship photo is a picture taken at my sister’s wedding, my father is dressed in large clothes, smiling slightly, with a decent tie. In the stock of approximately twenty thousand pictures, I somehow found that photo right away, probably because my father liked it so he “pointed it out”. That’s what I think, to strengthen the belief that, after death, people still have souls. Still understand my introductory whisper: Hey, this is my high school classmate, these are my colleagues at my old office, these are my uncles from my father’s old congregation… That’s when I thought to myself. burned incense, gave it to visitors, and said the same words as when he was still around.

Remember the day someone reminded me, please guide me so I can know the way home. I smiled softly and said, I have never let my father get lost in the past few years, so please rest assured. Suddenly I feel like crying when I think about every happy and sad moment with my father, accompanied by so many regrets. If only I could spend more time, I would be closer to my father, I would take him out more, I would be lighter and less irritable… That must not be my own unique feeling, but that of all others. Who has experienced loss…

If only I were closer to my father… (Artwork)

On the day I lost my father, I suddenly wanted to remind the whole world that let’s be together while we still can. That the next of kin can leave us at any time, without warning, unable to prepare anything for that painful separation. We will be shocked, panic, disappointed, miserable, tormented long after. So much love, regret, torment, that sometimes we ourselves did not expect…

Let’s take a little less work, a cup of coffee, a meeting with grandparents, so that we can sit next to our parents, listen as honestly, gently and patiently as possible. Because maybe, after that, he will leave us, leaving behind children who are no longer young, but still find life wobbly and helpless to the end.

Because orphans at any age are equally pitiful.

According to Women in HCMC