Father and daughter.

A Story by Aya Souayh

"Dear diary,

Today, there was a crowd at my house. I did not understand what was going on, but my mother was crying so I figured something went wrong. It occured to me that I did something wrong because she was crying harder whenever she looked at me.

Yesterday, my uncles and aunts came over. They all hugged me so tightly I could hardly breathe.

Today, they came again. Yet they were crying, just like mommy. And they hugged me even harder that I thought I'd faint.

It's still chaos here and still I don't get what's going on.

Yet there's something that inquires me, where's daddy?"

I remember the first time that I've heard the word "death", I was six or maybe seven years old, I asked my mom what did it mean, death. She told me that when someone dies, it's like they went near God, up in the sky, and that we'd never see them again.

So when they told me my father had died I asked my mother, "Is daddy near God?". She hugged me and cried, so did I.

When someone asks me to make a wish, I say "I wish cancer gets cancer and dies."

Cancer took my daddy away.

It has been sever years and yet I'm still wounded and the pain won't go away.

I hate it when people ask about him. I feel like it's sort of my fault, I hesitate and tremble and try to change the subject. I don't want to tell them he's dead. I don't want their sympathy nor their excuses.

Sometimes, I feel so lonely and nostalgic and I wonder, what would it be like if he was still here?

I hate it when my friends talk about their fathers, it makes me so jealous, so envious that I wish I had died instead.

I hate it when mom talks about him, it makes me want to cry and I no longer want to cry, not in front of her. I don't want to seem weak, at least not in front of her.

When I'm upset and people ask "why, you're not missing anything, you have everything anyone'd wish for." You're right, but I don't have a father.

I don't have a protector. I don't have someone to wipe my tears away. I don't have someone who'd ask if everything's okay and what we had learned at school that day.

I miss a father that was mine.

He defended me, he said that I was his little princess and that he was my hero.

He wanted me to be a doctor and I said that one day, I'm going to make him proud.

I remember all the times he held me, all the times I sat on his knees and slept in his lap.

I miss those moments!

How I wish he was there at all the games I played.

How I wish he had listened to me playing the piano.

He would have been proud of his little princess.

If only I had destroyed every cigarette he bought, he might still be here.

I wish he had seen me as I grow older.

How I wish he'd still be alive so everytime I get home he'd ask me what I've learned at school and I'll tell him about that boy I saw in the street and that I've fallen for, or maybe he'll just yell at me for coming home late.

I believe that I'm making it seem slighlty more perfect than it should be.

I know that if he was still alive he'd have disapproved on my clothing style and I might have hated him for that. But that's fine to me, at least I'll have my hero.

Oh daddy, if only you could see me now.

May you rest in peace, and know that you'll always be my first love.

© 2015 Aya Souayh

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Featured Review

Samuel Dickens

I find this very well-written and most touching. Being a son and a father, myself, I felt the pain and anguish all around. Throughout, I heard a voice that was distressed and not quite in control, which is just perfect for the subject at hand. Being rather old, I've lost both parents, a sister, and my younger brother. You never get used to it and the pain lingers, but such is the human existence. I try to see us as flowers that bloom in the spring, brilliant and full of life, but lying down in winter, making room for other flowers to rise from our seed.