[Trigger warning: Death and grief]

I am restless, unfocused, and all over the place. I find that I need to keep myself occupied, and yet I can’t quite. I’m in chaos, cleaning obsessively and yet haphazardly. 

I think to myself nonstop that last year, he fell asleep on June 4, never realizing that he’d never sleep another night. That in 24 hours, he would suffer for an hour before he took a deep breath, never letting it out. 

It’s traumatizing. Heartbreaking. I wasn’t there, but I remember every detail the way my Mom described it to me. I visualized it, and now the images in my head are so clear. I called the doctor two days later, asking about his last minutes, unconscious and almost gone when he arrived at the emergency. I needed to know. 

It was fate when we walked into the emergency room for my Mom a few days later. I saw the bed he died in. I put my hand on the foot of it, and I could see it all happen all over again in front of me. The night of horror she described was right there. I could feel it if I put my hand out.  

They say he looked peaceful. Like he was asleep. I constantly feel like nobody knew him at all. Because if they did, they’d know. 

They’d know he wasn’t ready.
They’d know he was worried he didn’t set life up for his younger daughter the way he wanted to.
They’d know he looked grumpy when I walked in 10 hours later.
They’d know what he looked like, peaceful, happy. They’d know what he looked like, grumpy and annoyed.
They’d know.

They’d know, like I did. 

It hurt seeing him dead. It hurt more feeling in my gut, he wasn’t ready.
But maybe it was me. Maybe I wasn’t ready.

I wish he saw how much we loved him. How much I loved him. He shaped everything I was and everything I became. I am so proud to be more like him.
His instincts. His authority. His insight. The things I am sometimes resented for, but I am proud of.

I wish I could’ve learned more from him. More about his thoughts. More about the world.

I often tell Mom, I don’t miss his presence in the big things. It’s not the massive emotional phone calls. It’s not life updates. It’s not those things that seem to matter to the world.

I miss him in the little things. The news cycle I can’t rant about. The movie I can’t describe. The philosophies and entirely overthought ideas about the world that nobody else will relate to. 

He was my person. 

Yes, my husband’s my person too. He and I talk about so much under the moon. My Mom is incredible. My sister is the shoulder every time I need one. But it’s never the same.

Because they didn’t watch me develop these thoughts. They weren’t there when I said God doesn’t exist. They weren’t the ones who told me to wait until I became an adult. They won’t understand the transition between “Why a temple?” to “I felt goosebumps in front of God.” 

But it’s beyond that. It’s the alignment. He understood everything I said and everything I didn’t say. He knew me better than I knew myself.

The conversations I had with him about me, my world, the world in general, him, his thoughts, culture, religion, politics, career, life, relationships – these were so unique and aligned. I have moments when I have a rush of thoughts and I realize I’ve got nobody to share it with. Not because they won’t listen but because they’ll never get it like he did. 

It’s a lot to lose a parent. It’s a lot more to lose your favorite one. It’s worse to lose the only one who’ll ever truly know you. 

He loved that I never changed my name. I told him my husband showing up doesn’t erase the fact that I am my father’s daughter. 

He loved that I called him for advise. “Your husband’s going to think, what is this wife, calling her Dad for life decisions while I’m here.” I told him I could be 60 and I’d still need my Dad for life decisions. My husband’s only my age. Can’t expect him to have the wisdom my Dad does. 

I remember I got a temporary tattoo early last year and called to tell him, “I don’t like it. I don’t think I’ll get a tattoo.” He said he was proud of me. Not for my book. Not for my career. For finally admitting what he hoped I would. 

He said he named me Poornima because I was round-faced like a full moon, and he hoped I’d have a full life. My last call with him was June 4. I sent him a photo from my trip to Bondi Beach in Sydney. He said, “Wow. Round face. Happy smiles. Good.”

I’ll regret hanging up that phone that day. My adult life needed me and I didn’t know I would never speak to him again. But I wish I hadn’t hung up that phone. I remember thinking to myself, “I should buy him something nice when I go home next month.”

I was home in a van on the way to a cremation room 48 hours later. 

I don’t know how we get over this. How we move on from losing a parent. 

They say grief is permanent. The heartbreak comes in waves. A part of our soul lost and never to return again.

It’s been a year. I’m in grief therapy. Every session, I remember more and more about him. About growing up with him. Memories long forgotten.

The person I want to reminisce with after each session is him. 

I want to call and ask if he remembers. Hear him tell me one more story that I used to roll my eyes at. About my childhood. About his life. About what it was like to be a dad.

Every little part of him feels precious. His phone. His clothes. His scent. 

Maybe in a year, it won’t feel so raw. I won’t feel the cuts my heart is struggling to heal. 

Maybe in a year, I’ll be able to smile when I think of him and not hurt. I’ll be able to throw the small pieces of paper his wallet held, which have no significance except the fact that he held them at one point.

Maybe in a year, I will finally change the fading strap on his watch. The one I smile, and hold close every time I wear it. Maybe it won’t feel like him holding my hand. 

I don’t really know how this ends. This post. These emotions. This moment in time that feels so excruciatingly painful to process, but life has left me with no choice but to endure. I don’t know how I continue to grow my family, my career, switch jobs and never ask him if I’m doing it right. Never hear him talk me through my fears.

But I also know I hear him in my thoughts. He’s there in the decisions I make. My instincts are shaped entirely by his words, his advice, his slow push that has taken me through this life for 32 years.

When I negotiate salaries, I hear him say, “There is nothing wrong in asking for what you deserve. Don’t undervalue yourself.”

When I second guess myself, I hear him say, “You’ve made the decision, that’s it. Move on. Don’t go back and forth once you’ve decided.”

When I cry from how this hurts, I hear him say, it hurts him too. “I don’t want to see you cry. You’re my happy child.”

He prepared us for this. A lifetime of telling us, “All those who are born must one day die.” Yet, I feel more unprepared than I ever have for anything ever.

Maybe I’ll be okay. In a year. In ten. In fifteen or twenty. Maybe all these emotions will subdue, and I won’t remember ever feeling this way. Maybe his voice will fade, the instincts more experience than him. But I know that no matter what, no matter when, no matter how life takes on, I will never stop knowing in every inch of my existence and being in every second of my life, a daddy’s daughter.

Forever his first daughter,
P.