Letting Go

The sun has risen. Just over the hills to the east. The warmth of the sunlight makes a little headway against the chill that lingers into the mid-spring. These days, I wake up early.

In the front yard, the weeping cherry tree stands in solitude, with the wholeness of foliage the spring has bestowed upon it. It is a beautiful morning.

The chilling wind bites. As I move inside, the stillness reminds me of what has just happened. I am now in the room where my dad slept when he visited me. There is a part of the wardrobe where I still keep his clothes for his next visit. The visit that will not happen.

As the grief creeps up on me, I reflect on what has been.

What I had was beautiful. A beautiful dad. A loving dad. A dad who had forgone many of his life's comforts in favour of his family's. A dad who had annoyed me as frequently as I had him, and still found each other's company pleasant.

My dad was imperfect. He has made some poor choices. His loose association with social norms and sensitivities has rubbed some people the wrong way. It is a celestial intervention that the core part of his trade starts with making people go unconscious, and ends when they come around.

When you peel away this outer layer, you will come to it - the straight white core. The core that can only be discerned through the reflection of his deeds, not words. It takes a thing or two for a 75-year-old anaesthetist to travel around the country to provide free medical service to the needy. So does personally overseeing the erecting of a primary school building in a remote village. And so on, it goes. All that, he did in his typical fashion - unassumingly, casually, and without any rhetoric.

After all, it is not about being a good person in every aspect all the time. I'm not sure if that is possible. But it is about being a fair person frequently enough in what matters.

As a father, I could not have asked or more. It's a dad who had not stopped raising me. Besides handholding me throughout my youth, here I am in my late thirties, he would still help me find my bearings through our conversations. Even in disagreement, he was a moral and intellectual springboard that I would turn to. My guiding sonar resonating from the shore beyond the sea. The sonar that I now search for, instinctively. There's only silence.

Now, as I face the new reality that is unfolding before me, I don't want the sense of irreplaceable loss that has wrapped itself over my memories. Because those were beautiful memories.

And so, I will ease into this sting and cling to the tenderness that arises.

I will stand here a while longer in the silence of the early hours, immersed in the stillness of the morning, being aware of the season, of the change it brings, of the time limit in its stay, of the mysterious order of things, of the incomprehensible, and of the immeasurable.

Then I will continue living deliberately, and below my means just as my dad showed. I will be present. And I will be mindful.

Everything that I am, I owe it to this man.

“In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you (anymore).”