fear

You know how some people live with the fear that one day they’d wake up realizing that they’ve fallen out of love with someone? That when that finally happens, they would know what a terrible thing it is their mind has done. Maybe part of them would lament the loss, they'd feel betrayed, but no matter how sincerely sorrowful they are, there is nothing they could do to bring back what has slipped away and all they’re left with is a feeling of helplessness.

I grapple with a similar fear. But my version is that one day I would wake up and I would forget my father: how his voice sounds like, how his eyes could carry so much amusement, wisdom, and intensity, the shape of his brown glasses, the clothes he used to wear - a shirt with a side pocket, brown, gray, or blue slacks, the way he walked, and how kindly he spoke towards me and other people.

Truth is, I’ve forgotten most of his jokes. All I remember is that he used to make me laugh, but I can't recall how. So I’m scared that in this state of slow deterioration, one day all his memories would disappear. That he would fade and become just a tiny, optional footnote.

My mind could erase him in many different ways. Like, one day, maybe it would refuse to echo back to me the way Papa used to say my name or his peculiar way of pronouncing, “hambur-ger.” And, in an act of betrayal, I would stop holding on to the last lingering look he gave - me in a telephone booth decked in stupid adolescent rebellion, while he was outside, gazing at me in his blue hospital robe with a look that encapsulated the saddest and yet most hopeful gaze he alone could probably give me in this lifetime.

I'm scared that as I go on with my life, as I become wrapped up in my responsibilities as an adult and as I take on new roles, my memories of him would suffer in the process. That eventually the daughter in me would die so it could give way to another person. Someone more whole; someone lighter, someone less fragmented.