She sat there with picture of her Dad in her hand, wiping it with her dupatta.
She could count the wrinkles under his eyes, something she had never noticed before. It never really occurred to her that he might be getting old!!!
She smiled thinking about the day that picture was taken, it would be roughly a month old. It was her wedding day…
The photographer wanted their picture together, he wanted to capture the father-daughter bond.
He kept asking him to stand straight and pose, but her Dad couldn’t.
“I cannot believe I made something so beautiful, so serene!!” he said cupping her face in his hands.
Her eyes welled up thinking about it, she had so much anger in her that it made her tired.
She put the picture down and walked across the room to stand by the window. Looked like the monsoon was approaching, but the cool air was also not helping.
“I wish instead of taking the poison, you would have taken the flight and came straight to me.” She said to the empty room.
“Maybe I would not have been able to help you, but I would have hugged you so tight Dad that you would never have thought of leaving us alone”
She turned on the table lamp, sat down with a pen and paper. This was the last letter she would be writing to her Dad…
Dear Dad…
We are waiting for your body to arrive, nothing feels good here…
I overheard Shami aunty saying that maybe you were weak… too weak to live another day…
They don’t know the person you were, but then again I feel, did I really know the person you were?
But it does not really matter now, does it?
Suddenly I feel responsible… responsible towards the family you raised and nurtured for a very long time… I don’t think I am ready for it Dad…
What do I tell the woman you married 35 years ago, that you left her midway with two young girls to take care of?
She is in the kitchen cooking food for you, she keeps saying how tired you are these days…
Just before my wedding I asked her “Mom do you really like being married??”
She smiled and said “Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night from a bad dream, all sweaty and shaky, I hear your dad breathing softly next to me… a wave of realization settles over me as I realize that this is what peace sounds like… and yes I do like that. I like being married to him…He is my peace…”
What do I tell her, that she will be restless for the rest of her life?
But don’t worry about that dad, she will survive… because she is a mother… she will survive for us…She might never breathe peacefully but she will breathe… just to exist…
I hope you realize that Sanya’s paralyzed lower body will not get any better…not without you at least…
You were her motivation, her will to live…
She was dependent on you for her independence…
Do you remember the time when she was a teenager and she had a crush on this cute guy?
She was filled with low self-esteem and felt awkward in approaching the guy on a wheel chair…
You told her “Nothing should stop a young girl from dating!!!”
You gave her the courage that she was as normal as I was and she did go ahead and spoke to the guy. Today they are best of buddies…
But she will survive Dad, not because she has a will to live anymore but because she has this undying will to make you proud…
So that leaves me, your eldest daughter. I am expected to be the strong one, but I don’t want to be…I am not prepared for this…
I have difficulty in breathing Dad, looks like there is a hollow space in my heart.
It keeps building up, trying to suck the air out of my lungs…
I think I have to learn to live this hollow, it was a place in my heart where you resided…
But don’t worry about me Dad, I will survive too…
I will survive because I found my peace in the guy you chose for me… he is here with me… taking care of everything… giving me my space to grief…
He is aware of the hollow in my heart, he keeps saying “Breathe!! I am here for you!!!”
He is probably the last best thing that could happen to me!!
I will cherish him for the rest of my life, after all he is the last present from you to me…
You found me my peace Dad… I can’t thank you enough for that!!
I have decided that I will learn more about the afterlife or the heaven. Or wherever that is that attracted you to leave us and take that poison.
I am sure you thought it would be a better place than this, I sincerely hope it is!!
Signing off with a hollow heart,
Your daughter
She folded the letter and went downstairs. She could see her father’s body blackened by the poison. She slipped the letter in his pocket and went and stood by her mother and sister…
Three women on their journey of survival….