112 - The day my father dies

One thing that has never come up in my everyday ponderings is the prospect of my dad dying. I know it sounds terrible to think about my father's death, but let me just explain how my emotional system works.

I don't like watching people or hearing about people being stricken by tragedy. I don't like knowing people can feel devastated, or torn apart. Most of the time this happens, is when people get too used to taking life for granted. They take the people around them, they take the things they've got for granted, and it's only a matter of time before some unknown force takes it away, because the reality in this universe is nothing lasts forever.

Something as tragic as my father's death is undoubtedly going to affect me. I shouldn't even be allowed to blog if I thought his death wouldn't affect me, due to how disturbingly stoic and inhumane that kind of reaction would be. However, the one thing that I can reduce is the shock factor. The one thing I can control is whether I feel something has been taken away from me, or has merely been lost. I don't want to feel that God will have taken away my dad. Especially with the information I have, I shouldn't feel that way.

My dad takes drugs. My dad drinks. My dad smokes. One would normally take these facts, and say they worry about their father's health, and that would be the end of that train of thought. It would be a dark piece of information lodged in the back of their mind, and they wouldn't think of it any further because they would be afraid to think of that dreadful day. Everyone wants their parents to grow old, to watch our growth, and to live a long and prosperous life.

But being afraid to think of death is what causes that sense of surprise. Having faith in life lasting forever is what makes us overwhelmed by grief. Which brings me back to why I imagine how his death is going to go beforehand. 

I picture myself in my bedroom, at my computer, in the five-person house I will rent with the English friends I've met at university. Or perhaps I will be walking out of a lecture, and as I do so, checking my phone for any missed calls. Any way it happens, it'll probably be my mother who tells me how, where and when my father happened to die in Hong Kong. I would be surprised by the news then, but I will not feel dismayed, shaken up, or awe-stricken.

I would tell my mother when I would fly back to Hong Kong as soon as possible. I would notify my housemates of what happened, and what will happen in the next few months, and will probably shed a bucketful of tears as I do so. I would fly back on the plane, quiet the whole time. On my arrival back in Hong Kong, many days will be spent organizing and discussing with my family what will be done with my father's body, and how we will commiserate him. Nobody will really care to ask me if I want to talk about what just happened. They will just assume I do, when really I don't. It'll be annoying, but I can't and won't blame them.

A couple weeks later, his funeral will happen, and I will be there in the front row, directly in front of a portrait picture of him, with his ashes or coffin situated behind it. The suit I will wear will be the most expensive outfit I will have ever purchased. Outside, it will not be sunny that day. It won't be cloudy either. It will just be normal weather conditions, semi-sunny, semi-overcast. I won't wear a tie. My face will be blank. Maybe I'll wear sunglasses, like how my father wore sunglasses at his dad's funeral. The church would be silent, just the way I like it, besides the words of the reverend that will perform the ceremony.

Standing behind and beside me will my three half-sisters of which my father also beared, my paternal grandmother, my aunts, my uncles, and my cousins on my father's side, as well as my father's co-workers, my father's friends, and three of my best friends and my mother who I invited for my own moral support.

I might speak about my father to the people who attend that day. After all, I am his son and I am a writer. I don't know what I will say, but I don't need to start writing that any time soon.

But that's already past the important part.

The important part will have been when I stand in front of his picture and say goodbye in my heart.

And as the days go by from now until that day, whatever may change externally will be countered by some change in this image that I have constructed, promptly and appropriately. Like if it turns out that I get an apartment by myself next school year, then I suppose I don't have to tell those housemates I originally planned to live with. That's how the grief reduction program works.

This system works every time. The system prevented anxiety attacks when it came to my final high school examinations, because I prepared myself mentally for glorious success and dismal failure. The system helped me face my summer job, knowing how to balancing inner confidence and the idea that I might get fired at any point I was working. The system saved me months of depression in the last few weeks I was in Hong Kong, on the plane ride to England, and for the past four months in university when I had perfectly good reason to feel weak and lonely.

Before I came to England, I imagined myself crying every night, missing home. And I now imagine crying every night after my father dies. In doing so, I live the experience once already in my head. There will be no heartbreak anymore because I've already had it broken. It's not to say I don't care about my father anymore. I'm not saying he's dead to me. I still care about him, my mother, and all of my family and friends. But I feel that I need to be strong, and I need to take care of myself. As people sometimes say, you can't look after others until you learn to look after yourself.

That's what I'm doing. That's what I just did, today. I went through the day my father dies. I will be fine on that day. They will say, "Wow, Michael. You're handling this incredibly well. I can't even begin to figure out how you do it."

And what you have just read is my explanation in full.