涙なしには読めないコラムです
大好きなお父さんをはじめとする家族や、
あなたの周りにいる大切な人たちとの時間は、
あたりまえにそこにあって、
無限に続くような気がしてしまいますが、それは限りあるものです
Thank you for writing about your precious father, Ms.Ven
それではVen講師のコラムをどうぞ
Today is about 3
years and 3 months
after a heartbreaking day for our family.
I could still
remember his clothes,
the way he would wore them – jeans and a tucked-in shirt.
We had breakfast
early morning then,
we kissed him goodbye, and the rest was history…
It was Monday, the national Election Day (May 10, 2010)
and the
special day of my brother.
Like any ordinary
Mondays,
my father would wake up early, cook for us,
have an early breakfast
with my mother
(they would even share the same cup of coffee)
and prepare his
self for work.
That’s the way he
always started his week.
But I never had
imagined that that would be the last time
I would see him alive.
For on his way to
work he met an accident
and he was seen dead-on-the-spot.
Ever in my life, I
had never expected he would end up that way,
for my dad was an active man,
hectic, and full of life.
I have heard several people talk about LIFE – that
it is not
permanent and that we should treasure every moment of it;
that we should
cherish every second with our love ones for it may not last.
Many said that
LIFE is a gift so we must handle it with care.
But what if the
gift that you thought
you can have forever was snatched away from you
in just a
blink of an eye
– without giving you a warning and without letting you say
goodbye?
Every day I wake up with the same pain, with the same tears and
with the same hope that someday, somewhere,
he would come back and everything
will be back to normal.
But I guess all I
would have is the same answer
– he had gone ahead of us and I will never see
him again.
Even if the people
around me would cheer me up and tell me to just accept things for it’s just the
way life is.
It’s how life
works, people come and people go.
Yes, I had already
acknowledged the fact that my father is gone but the thing that is most
unbearable is that I miss him so much and even his picture can’t lessen the
pain.
I even thought
before that life is unfair because of all people, why him?
He is still young.
My parents had so
many plans like spending their grey-hair days together at the province, travel
abroad and experience the snow.
Why had God taken
him instead of those criminals?
I had so many
questions and yet it seems everything had no answers.
I also had the
urge to blame someone for his death.
But I know, at the
end of the day, I can blame no one.
When he left, I had learned a lot of things.
I learned how to
be independent, to stand on my own feet and make my own decisions.
Also, I had
realized that life is indeed short; so we have to grab every moment, cry every
tear, capture every happy moments, forgive every sin and love every person.
Thirdly, I had
become conscious that even though my father left us, life must move on.
Even if I’m
afraid, I must move forward.
I can’t be buried
in this spot forever because I also have my mother and brother who still need
me.
I must be strong
for them because I can see that they are also trying very hard to be tough for
the whole family.
There had been a
lot of “first times” for us – first Christmas, first New Year, first summer
(and a lot more) without him but I’m sure, we can surpass all of these
together; I know it’s going to be hard, but I know we can.
Finally, I
understood what life really is; it’s not a gift, it’s like a book from the
library, time will come that you have to return it to the owner even if you’d
still love to read it.
We are not the
owner of our lives.
Even in the
beginning, God gave us our first breath so He and only He have the right to
claim it back. Our sole responsibility is to take good care of it, for it is
just borrowed.