A funeral service for my feelings

 I remember having a routine where I had to cry while writing. I would force tears through listening to sad songs in order to be vulnerable and give my all to the piece. Now, I avoid crying as much as I can. It’s excruciating when tears come out of my eyes.

 

This was the first Christmas without my dad but at least I made in time to spend it with my mom and my sisters. It has been a hell of a ride since our world collapsed. It took me two months to leave Addis Ababa and then another three months to see my family, and finally end this grieving jet lag.

 

I don’t know why I’m writing this, if it’s an end of year resolution or just gathering all my thoughts in order to finally bury my feelings. I wish to start by saying that I wasn’t fortunate to attend my dad’s funeral, therefore, I need a funeral service for my resentment towards everything I went through.

 

I want to forget that I was alone, with no family, in a country that I despised. I genuinely pray to move on. Dear God, allow me to replace those unwanted feelings for hope and faith, allow me to talk about the people that constantly showed support and saved me...Allow me to concentrate on the people that I had not seen in years but reached out. I remember getting an anonymous call from a stranger, saying that she saw my number on Instagram and wanted to speak to me. She told me that she went to university with my mom and saw my dad courting her. We spoke for a while, she opened up that she went through the same thing when she was my age and all she wanted was to give support. She also asked if she could be in touch with my mom even though they had not spoken in twenty years.

 

I also want to share the strength that this traumatic experience offered me. I remember when my mom brought my niece to live with us because her parents couldn’t be there for her at the time. She was four years old but there was something about her energy, like she lived more than us. A few times I caught her fighting with other kids and once she was so enraged that she said “You don’t know me”. I always wondered what she meant by that. Now I look back, the expression translated that she lived more than those privileged kids, and whatever she went through made her stronger. ”You don’t know me” means you don’t know what I have been through, what life taught me and how many times I felt like dying but I had to live. And now I can also say to anyone that crosses my path  “You don’t’ know me…”

 

I’m trying to see how I’m going to organize the thoughts that I gathered for the past six months. I want to put them all together in a piece of paper instead of a rant on WhatsApp status. I have been avoiding thinking about him but I need to do it one more time. Whenever I go too long without thinking about him and he suddenly crosses my mind, it feels like I’m getting the news all over again.

 

Back in Luanda, one day I went to my dad’s house and the moment I stepped into his room, a Bob Marley song was playing outside, in the backyard. Creepy, right? My dad was a big fan of Bob Marley. He was actually a fan of everything - he loved music, film, books, food, sports…I can’t think of anything that my dad didn’t like. He was the type of person that if you opened a business, and somehow he ended up at your shop one day, he would make sure he would be a regular customer, just to show support. 

 

I feel like a lot of people don’t get my sorrow, especially when it has been 6 months. The thing is I didn’t lose only a father, I lost a friend, my best friend. Elders always tell me that they never had a conversation with their dad, he was just someone who disciplined them. I think most families see their fathers as just a provider, or someone who gave them a life. My dad didn’t only give me life, he brought me back to life when I was done with this shitty life. He resuscitated me…  

 

It’s funny that I have this thing of killing people in my stories and I enjoy writing about grief. But now that the feeling is real, it’s not fun anymore. I used to spend nights thinking about ways to torture my characters but even my fertile imagination could never go so far – a daddy’s girl, a girl who had her dad as her best friend, loses him and is unable to go to his funeral. Wow! That’s fiction madness. So painful and perfect, right? I became a product of my own creation and I can only pray that I am still entitled to a happy ending. 

 

Being completely alone in a foreign country was just the first onset of pain, it was nothing compared to the aftermath of his death. My dad won’t be here for my wedding; when I give birth; or anything else. Instead, he was here for my birth; first day of school; graduation; prom; and every single day of my life. 

 

I always thought death was like an injection, you know? Something that hurts in the moment but then stops. No matter how many metaphors and theories I come up to describe death, I still don’t get it. And regardless of how wise I will eventually become, a naïve part of me will forever believe that I am going to wake up from this nightmare and see my dad. 

 

For now, I see him whenever I’m angry, sad, lost, hopeless. Whenever I want to resent people, he advises me not to. Whenever I argue with my mother, he suddenly comes and asks me to be patient. Whenever, I feel like ‘loosing it’, he holds me. My dad became my ‘good voice’.  

 

Whenever we went to the beach, my dad used to throw us in the water, and leave us there, far away from everyone. Then, he would tell us to try to come back, in order for us to learn how to swim. It was a fight for our lives to reach the tide but we managed. Losing my dad feels like I’m stuck in the deep waters of Mussulo (an island in Luanda), unable to swim.

 

I used to ask myself “Why I have everything?” “Why am I deserving of this dad?”, wondering why I was so blessed. And now I don’t have anything. I used to have this weird feeling that my dad wasn't here for a long time because the way we praised him, it felt like he was already dead. Like he was some kind of miracle, something so good that you can only dream of.

 

Like I said, no matter how much clarity I achieve, there’s always a moment that I despair. Not accepting his death is like throwing a tantrum. You know when you are a kid and you making a scene, people tell you that whatever they are doing to you, it’s for your own good but you still don’t listen, that’s how I feel about grief. I don’t care about “he is in a better place”, I just want my dad.

 

I’m sorry if this piece is not well-structured but my feelings are up and down. I think about everything and it feels like everything has a connection to my dad’s death, like we are part of this big movie plot. I remember arguing with my sisters about how fast people get the news of a relative’s passing. I told them that sometimes it can take time but they disagreed. They said it happens instantly, especially now that we have social media. I kept thinking about this girl that lost her mother ten years ago and she was at some carnival party and they came to pick her up. For years my dramatic-self pictured where I was going to be when I received such news.

 

I was home. I was getting ready to go to sleep when I got a phone call. I wish I ignored it like I ignore most of the calls. I don’t want to talk about it but now I understand why most people dance at burials. I used to see my aunts dancing every time we lost someone and I didn’t understand what it meant. I can only say that it feels like you are carrying something warm or heavy, and you try to not drop it.

 

Is it odd that I knew my dad was going to die? I used to imagine myself in his funeral, walking around, crying… and the plot twist was that I didn’t make it to his funeral. I shared those thoughts with a friend and he told me that I was just scared of losing my dad and that nothing was going to happen. Yet, I remember growing up with my mother always in and out of hospital and I never considered losing her. 

 

The last two years I felt like my dad was going to die and the only way I could save him was through growing up. It felt like an intimidation from the universe “either you grow or we are going to take your dad”, so I started changing and working on myself. I went through so much in a short period of time but he still died. In reality, I think it was time, the universe was just making sure I was ready for it.

 

My dad also knew…he kept giving us signs and warnings. I recall watching a documentary about a young American singer, member of the group TLC, where she mentioned those signs. She passed away years ago and their friends recount that a few days before her passing she said that she was going to die. She told them that she was involved in a car accident with someone with the same last name and this person passed away. Basically, she felt like it was supposed to be her and eventually it happened. As for my dad, only he knew what kind of signals he received from the spiritual world because he never shared his thoughts nor feelings with anyone. Being the reserved person that he was, his death feels like he is keeping a secret from us.

 

He was the warmest coldest person I ever met, he had this thing of ignoring people and then all of the sudden, spontaneously surprise them with hugs and kisses. He was so kind, supportive, generous, selfless, compassionate, caring, thoughtful...I remember struggling with my weight and my dad would do this thing of pretending I looked like a celebrity or someone that I looked up to. We would be watching TV and he would tell me that I looked exactly like a certain actress, he would say “she looks exactly like you”, and I would smile. Deep down, I thought it was hilarious how much he tried to cheer me up.

 

When I look back, those moments give me comfort and I constantly look for anything that eases my pain. For instance, whenever someone passes away, I stalk their family on Instagram, to get a glimpse of how they feel. Reading their eulogies helps me with my own grief and being unapologetic about it.  

 

I place myself months before my dad's death, watching a news about Covid-19 and a doctor said “this thing was created to kill” and that’s how I feel about losing my dad. This was meant to kill me! Because the love I had for my dad was the purest love, the only thing I was certain in this life. I am not sure if I like anyone but I liked my dad. My dad was like the weather - if he was happy, I would instantly be happy. If he was in a bad mood, it would also affect me. He meant everything to me…

 

Do you believe that the ones who are no longer here are still here in another form? I am not sure what I believe in but I came to understand that spirits are not shadows or ghosts. His spirit is here through the memories we shared and the lessons he left us with. When people say “he is here with us”, it means that his spirit lives through how we apply what he taught us.

 

I hark back him fighting for his life, eating all kinds of weird things – aloe vera juice, magnesium water, harpagophytum procumbens, and weird supplements. He was doing anything he could to be healthy and I prayed every night he would make it. But still he didn’t make it. I try to see it as the ‘democracy of life’, we need discipline and to be reminded of the value of life. My dad’s death made me praise this life and come to terms that from time to time, one of us needs to go.  

 

Still, I couldn’t fathom his passing, since he was someone so special and loved. It urged me to question God “Are you sure?” “Do you know how many people loved him?” “Do you know how many lives you destroyed?”. I constantly challenged his decision, however, my pain taught me that accepting death is humbling ourselves, understanding that there is a higher power who knows better.  

 

I lost my dad and I didn’t go to his funeral! That’s it! It happened and I need to live with it. I realized that staying far away from everything actually saved me. Seeing my family’s pain would ruin me. At least, being alone I wasn’t expected to be strong for anyone. It was just me and my pain. I cried every single day for three months straight and I know I will never be the same after this.

 

 

04.07.2020 

António da Silva Izata Junior