The Condition #13

Read previous installment here

“So this is where this picture went.” She said. “Have I ever told you how I and your father met?”
I shook my head slowly in reply.
“I was a nurse freshly out of nursing school and was new in town. One morning, this giant of a man was admitted to the hospital where I just started work. Your dad, being the careless log that we has had sliced his hand while working at the woodmill. It bled so much that I thought he was not going to make it. He was already getting weak from blood loss.”

“In the middle of everything, I noticed that he had this dirty, greasy rag wrapped around the cut and he tried to control the bleeding with it. I was so angry that he was using a filthy rag on an open wound that I dragged it away violently without even thinking. He opened his eyes to look at me and was just about to scream when all of a sudden he just paused.”

“With this stunned look he said to me. ‘Excuse me Miss, am I dead? Cause you have to be an Angel’ I only smiled like a buffoon. What amazed me was how he ignored his pain all in the effort to impress me.” She sighed. “He was really charming. He had this unserious way of being charming. I couldn’t say no to him when he asked me out for dinner after the doctor had stitched the hand up. It was incredibly difficult not to love him. Your father asked me to marry him two weeks later. He told me ‘Katie, it was as I stood on the fringes of life and death that I realized that if I died without making some decisions, my life would be a waste of time. And one of those decisions is asking you to be my wife.” She closed her eyes as if she was recalling the very moment of the proposal.
“He said ‘I’m young, you are young, we pretty much have nothing but I promise that if you marry me, you will not spend a moment not smiling.’ I never forgot those words. They were the most beautiful, most sincere thing anyone had ever said to me. And he kept his promise. You remember how happy this family used to be. Don’t you?” she said. “Even years after he is gone, he still makes me smile. The memory of him is more precious than gold.”
I was surprised that she did not cry as she spoke. I on the other hand was crying silently and I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. I didn’t want to speak for fear that I would lose it and start bawling. I always knew how to keep the pain in control but I didn’t know what was wrong today. I nodded in reply.
“Oh honey.” She put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay you know. It is totally normal to miss him. You don’t need to hold it in. Just let it out.”
I sat there and I heeded to her words. For so long I had bottled the pain and it had festered into this foul fluid in my soul. I felt that if I held it in any longer, I would explode. I was tired of brushing thoughts about dad away and lying that it was the past, that was how life was, I had to grow up. I was tired of pushing the pain to the ground where the roots grew deeper and influenced my whole being. I really did miss him. His smile, his voice, and the way he carried me when I fell asleep on the couch, The way he kissed me goodnight, the way he always lingered before he kissed my forehead as if he savoured it, His mane brushing my face, the lingering smell of saw dust. I missed the way he knew me, the way he could understand my thoughts. I missed my dad. I allowed myself to cry for a long while. I allowed the tears to fall, I cried out in pain. I let out all the hurt that I had kept bottled up all this time. Mom rubbed my back. She kept telling me that it was okay.
When there were no more tears to cry, I went to the bathroom and washed my face. “Are you okay?” my mother asked me.
“I am, mum. I really think I needed that.” I said with a dry smile. Dad was everything to me. He was this bundle of joy, this jolly man. He never let anything get him down. I knew it would really hurt him to look at me from… anywhere he was and see that his daughter grew up to be the saddest person on earth. 
Mom stood up and put the photo album back in its place. We didn’t get to see it till the end. “Oh. I forgot Eugene all alone down stairs.” She paused, looked at me seriously and then said. “I know I can’t force you to believe anything Anita. But you can’t refuse to hold on to something just because you are afraid of slipping. Your father never let any circumstance hold him down for a single moment… I know you are more like him than you think. What I am saying is… keep an open mind.”
I couldn’t tell if she was referring to the fact that I no longer valued God, or my emotional blockade against everything Eugene or the fact that my life philosophy thrived on the idea that disappointments were inevitable or even everything wrapped up together. I opened my mouth to say something but I didn’t know what to say.
“Don’t say anything.” She said. “Just think about it.”
“Oh I forgot! I made some cookies from the leftover cake ingredients and there is a tub of ice cream in the freezer. How rude of me not to offer you guys any.” She switched the topic hastily as she left the room.

To be continued…