Lucky to be alive

To those left behind by the ones they loved, this is for us.

It was an ordinary Sunday for me, until it wasn’t, because over a three-minute call, I learned I had lost my father. No words can console me that, for a fact, the one belting out “Alone” in our living room died alone, in the middle of the sea. He truly made the sea his home and his resting place.

I can never fathom the idea that I was never given the chance to hold his hand one last time. Pain is an understatement. But I also feel like even if I knew it was coming, I never realized it was that too soon. I just spent my first year in my job, and I haven’t even taken him out to a dinner date yet.

Grief is truly a process. One day, I can seemingly joke about the freedom of having no father, and one day, crying over a meal we once shared or double-taking when I smell his perfume. I cannot sit in his car without thinking about how he would love the sunset that I am seeing, and perhaps that’s okay. It was now all a part of me.

In the mundane things of life, I cannot help but feel his presence. He was everywhere, and while I carry a heavy heart over losing him, I am determined to continuously make him proud, to love loudly, and really live.

I can see my Dad with the UV Express driver, whose wallpaper is perhaps his daughter, smiling from ear to ear. That maybe, the time he is miles away from home, my picture gave him solace, too. That somewhere in this part of the world, a daughter is waiting for him to come home.

I can see my Dad with that old man in the ramen house. He was holding his granddaughter, and I just felt the warmth of his big frame holding someone fragile with his seemingly gentle, tiny hands. My Dad used to adore my niece and nephew, hold them so dearly. It was a gentleness I could not recognize as even his.

I can see my Dad in every coffee I have made every morning since he left. How the bitterness lingers and gives me so much strength every day, to be awake, to fulfill my dreams, and get the day done. The strong smell fueled my day, like it used to make his stomach strong to cease every big wave of the sea.

I can go over the list. I can see him everywhere because he was a people person. He sees right through people.

The longing and everything in between can be a recurring thing to experience. When words cannot make sense anymore, and tears grow tired from falling, I hope you, too, can realize that death might be the end for them, but it was never ours.

Grief can be a long process. It can be a cycle. It can get harder one day, then go easy on some. But never lose sight of life when death seemingly ends one’s life. I cannot console you or say that the process will eventually lead to healing. But I am sure that our loved ones would love to see us live and dream with them even if they were not around.

You see, here’s a thing about grief: it stays in our lives; it was never just big, heavy waves. It sees right through the quiet echoes of our ordinary life. We just have to live with it.

To those who were left by their departed loved ones, I hope you realize how good it is to live, how lucky it is that we are alive right now.

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Ricci Demapanes, 25, was born and bred in Cavite, but is a Bisaya at heart.