Work Text:
Mourning for someone is strange. Someone who was always there suddenly isn't there anymore.
After some time the touches, the talks, and the time spent together come back. It's the way a smell, a song, or even a sight reminds of someone who is long gone.
The first day looks like a lie. The first week looks like a mess. The first month looks like what the word 'saudades' in Portuguese means. And the first year, only God knows.
It's been a couple of weeks and every single day at least one thought about the person crosses my mind.
Sometimes I feel guilty… Guilty for not doing something different I could, or should, have done. Of words, I should have said and of words, I should have said differently.
Sometimes I feel at peace… Peace of knowing there isn't any more pain, suffering, and sadness. Feelings I never heard about but I knew they were there.
Sometimes it pains me. Pains me because I wish to say things I can't anymore, things about my own life that this person can't listen to.
Sometimes I wish this person could listen to me but at the same time, I don't. I don't want him to revive my pain, my sadness, and my fears even if at the same time he could be relieved of my happiness, my love, and my success.
It's almost a month, and even though I tried to imagine how I would feel if this happened It's clear how far from reality I had imagined.
There are days of profound sadness, there are days of numbness and there are a few scattered days in which life seems normal, just as if he was still here.
But even on normal days, there is a person missing at the table, a whistle missing in the distance, silence instead of the background sound of the TV, and the kitchen sink empty of a thousand plates. And this will never be as it was.
There are times the memories are floating in my mind, so far away I can't comprehend them, and when I listen to a sound, see or smell something, it seems as if he was going to appear right around the corner.
The whole mourning process is of healing and feeling pain, relief, and sadness. And going through it, even a few times where I felt incredibly selfish, I wish this wasn’t happening to me, to us. But all that comes has to go, and all that was alive at some point has to die. My only hope and solace are that there is no more pain for him.
Dad, I hope that wherever you are, you are at peace.