‘What if things went different?’
It wasn’t really a question that was asked.
More a thought that was expressed.
If it was by me, I don’t know so well anymore.
It came up in a conversation I had.
And it was supposed to be leading to something.
What that was, was the real question.
What if my mother had helped my father?
Would he have lived longer?
A struggle I am facing.
Wrapped in these two questions.
‘I am trying to solve this’, was my answer.
It is something I am experiencing and if he would perhaps have lived longer, I wouldn’t feel this way.
Sad is something you can say that is.
Angry perhaps a little bit even.
But the reality is also, that because of that I feel this way I am looking for a solution.
The fact is, there is always a positive side to everything.
You can even call it a silver lining.
It means an advantage that comes from a difficult or unpleasant situation.
‘There is something I am missing’, is what I said in that conversation.
‘Because he wasn’t in my life at this young age’.
‘I don’t know what that is’, I ended the sentence with.
I looked outside the window and started to rub my fingers.
My thump over my index finger.
To express that I was missing something, that I couldn’t put my finger on.
As a way of expressing.
The irony is, I was using my fingers in this way.
And so I am sitting here, behind my little laptop in the kitchen.
By myself.
However lonely is not how I feel.
I am here alone.
It is just the space I am in to see if I can find out if things would have been different if he would have lived longer.
That I wouldn’t feel so angry.
Because that is how I came to this point.
That I wouldn’t be so angry at her, that in my opinion she didn’t help him.
I am talking about my mother.
Or perhaps I am angry at her for a different reason.
Perhaps not even angry at all.
Perhaps anger is a mask for fear.
There is nothing coming up, when I write down these words.
I guess, it isn’t that then.
Perhaps I am just sad that I miss him.
It could be.
However, I cried already so many times and these tears are dry.
I don’t think it is this either.
The more I am writing about it, the less angry I am becoming.
Excluding possibilities is relieving.
A different thought I had, is that if my mother had helped my father, he still had to do a lot of work on himself.
To not end up with the same conclusion.
Committing suicide.
I am not saying that this was a reason she didn’t help him.
Just to say that if she did help him.
There was still so much more for him to complete.
He lived in an environment where there weren’t any tools to help him there.
In that situation I mean.
It is the world that I came to know that there is suicide prevention and ways to get you out of there.
Something I have experienced myself, that although I was living in that kind of world, it would still not be available to me.
I know that sounds weird.
Taking over traditions. Even values and norms.
Speaking that language or moving in that way.
Behaving like being one of them.
Is not a guarantee that all that is available in that world obviously works for people that are from there.
Born and raised, I mean.
Built from that kind of ground.
I am writing it down, like it wasn’t me.
And it is the truth.
It wasn’t me.
It is someone I used to be.
It makes me happy and sad at the same time.
It was obvious that I wasn’t one of them.
To start with.
With my skin color.
The rest is something you can only feel, I think.
Perhaps the reason people are not even reading my stories.
Because I am not one of them.
Or a reason that they should.
Happy that I came this far and realized this about me.
That I could become this kind of person.
Sad that this isn’t the solution to that problem.
Living in a different system that we are born in, apart from how we got there, is not a solution to certain problems.
I mean, because my father committed suicide, for whatever reason that was, led to that I am missing something till this day.
I can hear you think, it is a father figure I was missing in my early childhood.
Or a father to start with.
And although that is a concept to me, since I don’t know what that is.
The fact is, that he is my father and I am still missing him.
You can question if I know what that is.
Missing someone I only met a few years of my life.
Well, yes I do.
It is something I can feel, from the core of my being.
There is nothing that can prevent me from feeling that.
Not even death.
In any kind of way.
The connection I have with him is stronger than that and is growing more and more every day.
By expressing it this way, I feel that I am starting to gain the substance I was expressing earlier in this story.
The rubbing of my fingers.
I think I can finally put my finger on it.
It is that I have missed the time, due to those circumstances, to acknowledge that he is my father.
Whatever happens, in life and death, he will always remain my father.
I believe that is a beautiful sentence.
Perhaps even a vow.
Something I realized when I was writing it down.
But that is not an ending.
At least not to this story.
There is still one more thing I need to write down.
That is to write down, what would have happened if my mother helped my father?
Because I went a bit fast forward at the beginning of the story.
I said that even if she had helped him, he still had to do a lot of work on himself.
And we can all imagine that.
I mean suicide prevention is not something that is over with a conversation, counseling or any other forms of help.
I think that is a burden that is not the task of just one person.
In this case my mother.
It could even be another reason my mother didn’t lend my father a hand.
That she could sense that it wouldn’t be the solution to his problem and in some way jeopardize the course of his life.
Because we can not interfere in something that isn’t ours.
It would do more harm to the person.
I guess another life lesson I am learning.
Something I have experienced.
I will explain that another time.
But knowing that the help of my mother would probably not mean any different outcome of that situation with my father.
I believe it is I need to find a different ground, perhaps even a different system where the outcome would be different.
Three times is a charm, so to say.
I don’t know why I was saying it that way.
It is not that I want my father to have lived a different life.
I mean he is dead.
That is a fact.
He isn’t in my life.
He committed suicide.
Already a long time ago.
What I would like to know is if I could change something in real time.
Even when I know that with my help, the outcome would be the same.
To say to do the things my mother didn’t do.
I could help where I feel I can, using whatever I have.
Not to prove that she was wrong or to see if there is a different outcome possible.
But to find out if I can hug the father of my child and tell him I love him.
I think it would be a solution to that problem I had.
That the father of my child lives as long as he needs to live.
For history to not to repeat itself.
That my child has a father that could give her a kiss before she falls asleep.
And tells her that he loves her with all his heart.