Have you ever had an out of body experience? When your soul somehow left your body and you were staring at yourself from a third person's point of view? I was in middle school when I first heard of it and now, at the age of 34, I suddenly remember having one of those moments when I was a little girl.
I was about four years old and it was my father's funeral. Everyone was saying condolences to my mother, and relatives and family friends whom I didn't even know were patting me and my older brother, Jack, on the head. During the eulogy, people were giving out speeches about dad, I can't remember what exactly they said now but I remember the tears. "It's sad," they said, "to die at the young age of 40 and leave a wife and two little kids." "It's too bad, but at least he died protecting his country." "He died a noble man." Conversations of how too sad and too bad it was for him to die young were all around the house.
And I mostly remember having the out of body experience. It felt like I was standing at the door of the church, listening Grandpa Tom talk about dad when he was a baby, and I saw myself, Emily, sitting in one of those benches. I was sitting in between Jack and mum. To my right Aunt Pauline, dad's step-sister, was wrapping her arm around mum as she sobbed into her shoulder and to my left Jack had a stone-cold face, but I could swear I saw a tear in the corner of his eyes. Even until today he was too prideful to admit that he was crying.
That day was one of my earliest memories and although I was too young to process everything that was going on, the oddity of it all made it stand out in my early childhood memory.
Growing up, people had asked me if it was weird growing up without a father. And every single time someone asked me that, I would ask them back, "How would I know?" Most people would feel guilty for even asking because they felt like they were being insensitive. But some of the douchebags I went to school with would keep asking me the same question as if I would one day miraculously come up with an answer. But I never really cared if they were trying to mock me or anything. Frankly, I didn't even know if they were. I think subconsciously I knew they didn't think the question was a big deal, the same way I didn't think growing up without a father was a big deal.
Mum raised Jack and I pretty damn well for a young widow with kids aged seven and four. We had a decent childhood, a roof over our heads, food on our plates and more than enough love. I never felt like I was missing anything. And it didn't feel like mum was being a mum and a dad. It was just that she was a mum and she was enough.
The first time I ever felt different about not having my dad around was on my wedding day. This was 6 years ago. The day itself was already surreal, I was getting married. But seeing Ash stand in front of chapel with the biggest smile on his face and that he was radiating with so much passion and love told me that I was marrying my soulmate. Jack walked me down the aisle and that day, for some reason, he set his pride aside and shed a few tears. It was the first time I ever saw him cry.
After the ceremony, I told Ash I wanted to stay back at the chapel with my brother, said he wanted to have a chat with me. Once everyone had left, Jack sat next to me at the table and kissed my cheek, congratulating me again for my wedding. "You know what dad would say if he saw you right now?" He asked me and I saw that his eyes were watering again.
I gave it a thought. "No, I don't know."
He had a small smile on his face and he was looking down. For a second there, he was looking at some place far away, or maybe a place that no longer existed. He blinked twice before looking back at me and he said, "He would say that you look very beautiful, and he wishes you all the happiness in the world. You married a good man."
I didn't realize I was crying until Jack put his hand over mind and squeezed it gently, reassuring me. "Yeah? You really think so?" I asked, wiping the tears off my face and bracing myself for more. Jack never really talked about dad, maybe because he didn't have much to tell but neither did mum. If I remembered correctly, this was the first time I heard anyone talked about him ever since his funeral. "What else would he say? Do you think he's proud of me?"
