I think we forget things if we have no one to tell them to. So, I am writing this down. It is said that no one remembers their daily life; we forget as time passes, and we change. With years passing by, as I grew older, the things I cared about grew fewer, but were more important. I have found that some people have shown kindness to me when I didn’t expect it, but I needed it more than ever, and then some people have shown their true nature. I have started to embrace my inner self, practice gratitude, and be kind on a daily basis, to myself and others. I’m trying to learn how to tell people what I want to tell them when I have the chance, before it’s too late. Now, I live with regrets that my true feelings for them would never be revealed. Sometimes we are unsatisfied with our lives, while many people dream of living our lives. A child on a farm sees a plane fly overhead and dreams of flying it. But a pilot on the plane sees the farmhouse and dreams of returning home. That’s life, and now I realize that the story isn’t over. The silence on the plane after leaving behind people, places, and memories is very heavy. I see outside the window, sky filled with morning haze when the Sun is just about to appear. It brings me hope that days will be better, but it’s kind of fascinating to find that life pulls you into extremely critical situations. You will discover challenges all the way lined up to test your mental strength, so much that you gotta do anything to be able to meet the goals for which you’re truly meant. The effect of some people’s presence can have on you is indescribable.

I sometimes wonder if it’s fair enough for life to take away this much from me at this age. Every calm moment you see in me has the grave of the chaos I survived. It hurts to face the future without the one you have grown and planned it with. I don’t recognize myself anymore, neither in my laughter nor in my silence. Somewhere between surviving and pretending, the earlier me and the current me, I became a stranger to my soul. I know deep inside that life is cooked when your mother is living alone, and realise that sharing your problems is itself causing a problem inside you. There are moments when the heart suddenly feels heavy, and you can’t even explain why. I still sometimes can’t sleep at night, and sometimes wake up at 5 am and can’t sleep after, no loud thoughts, no fresh pain, just a quiet ache that wraps around your chest like a weight you can’t shake off, and the worst part? You don’t have anyone to talk to. Not because you don’t have people around, but because you are tired of explaining your pain. That’s the thing with pain, past, problems, panic, peril, pity, pressure, and every other ominous word that starts with the letter “P”. The more you try to push them away, the harder they strike on your face.

Pain never ends, we just learn how to live with it. Most of the pain is in the eyes, which don’t sparkle anymore. Some traumas never heal; that’s why we have scars. I still remember my mother feeling helpless and all my cries. They say men do not cry, but the eyes, which used to dream, have cried now after such separation. Suddenly, I feel I am all alone. I missed home, my mother, all at the same time. Time does indeed slowdown in the spaces between my breaths now, that instead of crying, I just sit down and stare at nothing for hours. I sometimes negotiate with God, begging him, for I have always dreamt of taking care of my parents, and now, I’m at a point where I feel lost. What if I never become what I dreamt of? Well, dreams suck, and once you have dreamt of more, how could you settle for less? You get attached to them, and they don’t come true. For some people, they do, but not in my case. How do I face myself for the man who gave up everything so I could try? I was never able to thank my father for all I learned from him, for all the early mornings and silent sacrifices parents make so we get a shot at our dreams. The feeling of coming back home and my father picking me up at the railway station is something you can only feel but cannot really explain. Though I am very sure I will be bored in a week at home, but living with parents for a few more days gives me greater pleasure in life. In the last few years, I somehow took out time to visit many places along with my father, gave him some surprise gifts, and I will be forever grateful for that. Now, wherever I go, I am told that your father was one of the best people. Every day, I try to give up hope, and sometimes I think I have let go of it. I remind myself why I started in the first place. Maybe it does get better, and life isn’t that bad. Sometimes following your heart leads you nowhere, but still, in my mind, I wanted to see my father again. Just once, to ask him why he had left. Destiny, however, had other plans.

This is when you realize that there’s no other universe. If you lose them here, you’ve lost them forever. In the end, he has gone silently, without saying anything and leaving behind his legacy. I hope one day, I will make him feel proud. You can never get over the loss of a father, nor do you heal with time. There is no healing; we just pretend that we are ok. It’s learning to breathe in a house that suddenly feels too still. He proved that true success lies not in what you keep but in what you give to others. With just me and my imagination, I only pray for a night of peaceful sleep. For without him, there is emptiness, there is nothing in life worth celebrating on birthdays  and festivals like Diwali, Holi. Everything I was afraid of losing, I lost. For the weakness of my actions has led me to where I am lost. These unreal thoughts in my mind, where they will take me, I have no idea. The trauma, pain, guilt, and hurt never fades. It’s like waking up to a world that looks the same but feels completely different. The invisible force behind my strength, through his epitome of sacrifices—I have seen God in my father.

-Reminiscence 🕉️🙇🏻‍♂️

Written by Gaurav Gupta