GRIEF FOR DAD
Bang! Bang!!
"Stop it!" You scream to your 3-year-old nephew who finds it funny that he's hitting the cover of a pot on your head.
Bang! Bang!! Bang!!!
"I said stop it", you turn to smack him but he's nowhere to be found. Just as you're about to rest your head against the couch, he seems to appear again and hits your head with the cover of the pot again, only this time it sounds more like a knock at your door rather than a banging on your head.
Knock! Knock!!
You're half awake now, slowly realizing that your nephew is in his mum, your sister's house and you were just having a dream with him in it.
Knock! Knock!! Knock!!!
Now you're wide awake. " Who the heck knocks on someone's door at this time of the night?", that's your first thought, but then you think, maybe it's early in the morning and you were just about to sleep in and go late to work, but then you're thinking, that's also impossible because the pounding in your head is proof that you slept just a few hours ago. Your eyes dart to the clock at your bedside and the red neon light confirm your thoughts; 2:37 am.
Knock! Knock!! Knock!!!
The person on the other side of your door seems to be getting aggravated by how long you're taking to answer, which in turn pisses you off because nobody has a right to be getting angry with you for not opening your door at such an odd hour.
Knock! Knock!! Knock!!! Knock!!!!
The anger building within you pushes your legs forward and in a matter of seconds, you've sent your door flying open, ready to unleash your anger on who you find... Only the words catch in your throat as you realize who's standing in front of you.
"Dad?" You think you're mistaken, "What are you doing here? By this time of the night? Is mom okay? Are you okay?", without answering any of your questions, he strolls past you and into your living room, sits and crosses his legs the same way he's done all this time that you've known him.
You shut your door and go to sit with him.
" Dad?", he just stares at you grimly. Not knowing what else to say you ask what you can offer him and with so much anger registered on his face, he replies harshly,
"So you can poison me again?!".
Never in your 28 years of living and knowing him, have you seen the such expression on his face, and it takes all the courage you have to ask
" When did I ever poison you? Dad, what are you talking about?"
He stands up swiftly, the movement scares you but you remain still,
"I know I wronged you", his voice is sober now, " But never would I have expected that you'll want me dead. But I guess that's the price I have to pay for making a choice that you live to suffer the consequences"
You're sitting still, trying to decipher the meaning of his words and you don't notice when he slips out of your apartment until you hear your door shut. You dash into the hallway to get him to come back and explain what he meant, but to your surprise, there's no one there. It seemed just like he had vanished into thin air.
The sound of your phone ringing distracts you from the thought of your father disappearing into thin air, you're back in your apartment, searching for your phone but can't find it. The ringing gets louder and louder until it forces your eyes open.
You grab your phone from your nightstand, it's your brother calling. Your eyes dart towards the clock, it's 6 in the morning.
"Hell..."
"Come home as soon as possible," he says quickly.
"Why? Did something happen?"
"Dad's in the hospital. He wants to see you" he hangs up, having helped you realize that you were in a dream when you saw your dad.
As you approach the house that you grew up in, you can just tell that something is wrong, something worse than your dad being in the hospital. The moment you drive in, you're shocked by the number of people in your father's compound, but you can't even care about any of them, there's only one person you want to see and once your brother tells you the address of the hospital you'll be on your way.
The first person you see as you step into the living room is your stepmom who has become your mom —in every sense of the word— but you have not seen her since you got married 4 years ago. She looks dejected, there are tear streaks on her face, and seated next to her is your brother. You want to wait and comfort her but there are other pressing issues.
"Who are all these people in our house?" You ask your brother but don't even wait for his reply, before asking again, "What hospital is he in?", the question seems to have your stepmom bawling her eyes out.
Your brother stands and leads you out of the living room, into the dining room, where he breaks the news to you, " Dad passed this morning at 2:37 am"
It all comes crashing on you like a big wave. Tears pool at your eyes and without warning, they flow down your cheeks.
Until your dream this morning, you hadn't seen your father in 4 years.
The last conversation you had with him plays in your head;
"You're not going to marry that boy"
"But dad, I love him. Do you not care about my happiness?"
"I do and that's why you will not marry someone from that tribe"
You eventually gave up the fight and married who he chose for you and in those four years, you've not known happiness. The day of your wedding was the last time you saw your father, you blamed him for the miserable life you had and the even more miserable man you call a husband.
You'd vowed never to speak to him, never to see his face, even when your sister told him how terrible you were doing in your marriage and he called to apologize, you refused to pick up, after all, his apology wasn't going to change the fact that he had chosen a monster for you to marry.
After then, he had become sick and you refused to see him.
And now, at this moment you couldn't help the thought that you had contributed to his death.
Your father. The man you addressed as your hero up until four years ago was gone. You didn't get a chance to say goodbye, he died with the thought that you hated him.
"But I guess that's the price I have to pay for making a choice that you live to suffer the consequences," His words from your dream come back to you.
"Where is he? Can I see him?", You ask your brother.
"We've moved him to the morgue," he says and you struggle to blink back the tears that are coming at the thought that you don't even get to see him in his death.
"I need to be alone", you say to your brother and walk out of the dining room, your sight is blurry now from the tears that have refused to stop forming. You're not sure where your feet are leading you but you keep walking.
It's only when you're climbing up a flight of stairs that you realize where you're going.
You remember running up these same stairs each time your siblings were out to get you. Running until you got to your father's bedroom because you could always count on the knowledge that he won't let anybody touch you. Only you and your stepmom had the privilege of running into his room even when he had said he didn't want to be disturbed.
You reach the landing and make your way down the hallway, wiping tears furiously from your eyes, and hoping that somehow when you open that door he'll be sitting up in his bed reading a newspaper as he'd always done.
Your palms are sweaty when you touch the knob, your heart is about to burst in your throat when you twist it and your head begins to pound just as the door opens.
You take one step in and a wave of disappointment crashes on you, as if that wasn't enough the murkiness in the room wafts up your nostrils, awakening you to the reality of what has just happened.
Now that you're alone in what used to be his bedroom, you take a step toward his bed reminiscing how you slept in the same bed with him even after you hit puberty and now you can't even bring yourself to sit on that bed.
You kneel next to it, forcing your mind to imagine that your father is still lying there, a newspaper in hand and a glass of white wine on his nightstand.
" I'm sorry dad" that's the only properly formed word you can get out before the rest of it comes out in choking sobs.
"I'm so sorry. I should have listened to you, I should have picked up your calls, I should have given you a chance to make amends. I'm so sorry"
Your mind travels again to all the times you shared. He was a good man.
That thought brings even more tears to your eyes. How quickly it was for a person to go from being addressed in the present to being addressed in the past.
"I can't believe you're gone. I said I was going to talk to you eventually, I wish I'd done that earlier. I'm so sorry"
Your mind is coming up now with insane thoughts, "Please Dad. You can't be dead, you can't be. I didn't hate you, I never could have, I was just mad at you, please come back, please. I need you. My kids need a grandfather, my kids need a hero, please come back. Don't be dead. I'm sorry. I'll do better, I promise. I forgive you, I need you, dad, please".
" Daaaaad!!! No!!!! Don't be dead", you're grabbing the sheets now and sobbing into them and that's all you do for the rest of the day until you hear a knock at your father's door.
It's your elder sister. She looks almost as bad as you as she has been crying too. She takes you in and then pulls you into a hug. You sob on each other's shoulders for a while and then she tells you to come downstairs.
On getting downstairs, you see that the number of people in your house has decreased, which makes you quite relieved, but then you notice the two men dressed in black suits standing in the corner.
"We're with the state security service", they say in answer to the questioning look on your face, but their answer leaves you just more confused.
"We carried out an autopsy on your late father", they paused, probably to gauge your reaction, "We found traces of a deadly substance in his bloodstream. It seems to us that he was poisoned".
Your eyes shoot wide in surprise and then cloud once again with tears. " Why would anybody want my father dead?", you think to yourself. But before you can answer, the voice of one of the men cuts into your thoughts,
"We would like you to come with us to our station so you can answer some questions."
The thoughts in your head a raving back and forth, there are so many questions in your head but all you can do at this point is allow that tear to slide down your face.
As you make your way out the door with the men, your father's words from your dream come back to you;
"So you can poison me again?!"
— Onwumah Ozed
© 2022
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